


Case Closed, Right?

by MoonRenegade



Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Bakery, Baking, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Christmas, F/F, Fluff, Foster Care, Mystery, The Great British Bake Off References, True Meaning of Christmas, hallmark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 111,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22104577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonRenegade/pseuds/MoonRenegade
Summary: Daphne, a "corporate sell out businesswoman" living in New York who doesn’t “get” Christmas, is forced to back to her hometown for the holidays. While there, she meets her childhood sweetheart, Velma, and brings back buried memories.Can Velma teach Daphne the real meaning of Christmas?And are still there sparks of romance between them?
Relationships: Daphne Blake & Velma Dinkley, Daphne Blake/Velma Dinkley
Comments: 58
Kudos: 133





	1. In the Beginning

_ **Daphne, now:** _

As I drive past the sign welcoming me back to my small hometown, Crystal Cove, proclaiming it to be “Most Haunted Place on Earth” (this hasn’t been true for nearly a decade), I flinch a little. I hate being back here, I hate the small-town vibes. It’s always been like a cage to me, growing up. God, I hope none of the people I know are still here, that would be so sad. And Awkward™. I just need to get through the next two weeks, I repeat for the umpteenth time, then I can go back to normal life. I can go back to my job and my cats and my friends-.

There’s the high school I went to. I was prom queen in junior year, I had to fight tooth and nail for that. I was prom queen in senior year too, obviously. Fred, bless his heart, was prom king. I think he thought we were dating then, and I suppose I sort of did as well. What a pitiful excuse for a relationship that was.

I’m so glad I got out of here.

My childhood home slowly starts to appear. The gloomy building doesn’t seem to have changed very much at all: it still looms over Crystal Cove from atop Iron Hill. I pull up to the gate and buzz to be let in.

“Hey, it’s Daphne, could you let me in?” I say into the door phone. After a moment of static, a voice replies.

“Daphne? Oh, you sound so grown up! It’s been so long-.” God, is it going to be like this every time I introduce myself?

“Hi, Lyle. It really has been a while, huh.” I grimace but try to make myself sound as polite as I can. “Can you let me in, please?”

“Of course!” the phone buzzes, and the gate silently swings open.

“Thanks.”

*

_ **Velma, 1994:** _

September 3rd, I wrote as neatly as I could on the top of the page. I smoothed down the crease between the pages and kept my eyes down. All the other tables had a pair of students on them, most had chosen a partner and sat at a table. There's an odd number of people in the class, and because I didn't want to be a burden by forcing myself into a group: I didn’t want to gain the reputation as “the girl who takes over friendship groups like a disease”, especially not on top of being the new kid. I insisted to the professor that I would be fine on my own. They were all in their groups now, exchanging pleasantries and making trivial remarks about the other students. I made myself as small as I can and avoid eye contact.

The bell rang, and the professor opened the folder on the desk and proceeded to prepare to begin the lesson, tapped the desk a few times to quieten the other students. Just as the professor took a breath to begin, the door slammed open and a girl charged in. She had wild ginger hair, just barely held back with a green headband, and clad in a semi tight purple dress with pink tights underneath, which puts my over-sized orange jumper (it's comfy!) and loose red skirt to shame. She flicked her hair over her shoulder with mock confidence before turning to the professor.

"Sorry I'm late, professor," she smiled at them, then blinked a few times, "I didn't miss anything important, did I?"

The professor wasn't impressed. “Go sit down please, and don’t interrupt my lesson again if you don’t want a detention.”

The girl pouted a little but did as she’s told. She scanned the room, looking for a seat. I noticed that the other students fill any empty seats with their backpacks: she’s not exactly popular, then. We made eye contact, and she paused for the briefest of seconds, a little startled? She made her way down the classroom through all the chairs and tables, occasionally waving to others in the class, who winced in reply, before flopping down on the seat next to me. She pulled out an excessively purple notebook and matching pencil case from her also sickeningly purple handbag and gently placed them down at the corner of the desk. She had a strong purple theme and aesthetic, that’s for certain.

I tore my eyes away from her and focus instead on the teacher, who began the lesson. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl open her notebook, pull a pen, green, out of her pencil case, then start to write. She then proceeded to tear out the page she had written it on, fold it over, then slide it towards me.

I ignored it. The lesson is far more important, anyway.

She sighed and tapped her pen on the note.

Still ignoring her.

She began to repeatedly poke my arm, and curiosity was gnawing at me, so I relented and picked up the note. There's no name at the top of it for me to pass it to, as if it would mean anything to me if there was, so I opened it.

"Hi, my name is Daphne!

What's your name? :)

-Daphne" it said.

I looked at the girl, puzzled. This wasn't what I was expecting. At all. She glanced at the note expectantly. Well… It can't hurt.

"Hello." I wrote back. "I'm Velma."

I even put a smiley face in the "o". What was that Mum said about trying harder to make friends?

I passed the note back and watched out of the corner of my eye as she opened the note. A smile lit up her face as she read it.

"Are you new? I haven't seen you around." she wrote back.

"Yeah, I transferred a little while ago."

"Nice to meet you, Velma the new girl. :)" she replied.

I smiled in reply but wrote nothing back: we needed to focus on the lesson, after all. She seemed to understand, because she nodded and started making actual notes as the professor spoke. Soon, she was engrossed in the lesson, her head bobbing up, to look at the teacher, and down, to look at her notebook and the words she is meticulously forming on them.

I took small peeps at her from the corner of my eye. A small lock of hair slipped from behind her ear as she wrote, forming a small curtain of hair, blocking her face from my view. She was pretty, I'd give her that. And she seemed quite nice, too. Almost all the stereotypes of a “popular girl”, but she didn't seem to have very many friends.

There was only one kid who hadn’t tried to block any nearby seats. A blond kid in the corner, who kept glancing over at us now. Well, he kept glancing at Daphne, I just happened to be in the way.

From what I had heard in the corridor and could assume by his starch white sweater, blue polo shirt and red cravat (who in the world wears a cravat nowadays? Especially to school??), he seemed, to me, to be the Draco Malfoy of the school: rich parents, snobby attitude, and a pair of goons following his orders to the "t", the only new addition being that he's a jock. Despite this, he seemed to be quite popular amongst the… "quirky" girls, as well as the cheerleaders.

Observing him, I thought he might have a bit of a crush on Daphne. Suppressing a chuckle, I told Daphne this in a note. She glanced up at the boy, who promptly looked away, only to look back in a few seconds. Daphne grinned at me.

"That's Fred, and you're right. He does have a crush on me. Has for years." her next note informed me.

"Did you guys ever date?" I asked, before promptly adding: "(sorry if that's too nosy of me.)"

Daphne read the note, scrunched up her nose, and started to write a reply. Midway through her writing, the teacher appeared, hovering over her shoulder.

“Passing notes, are we? Care to share what you two were talking about with the rest of the class?” the teacher doesn’t wait for a reply and instead floated down two pink detention slips, “Detention for you both.”

There were a few snickers from around the classroom, but they were quickly silenced by a glare from the teacher. First day in a new school, and I already had a detention.

Great.

Mum’s going to be so proud.

The lesson continued unremarkably. Once the bell goes, marking the end of the lesson, the teacher asked for us both to stay back.

“So,” the teacher says, “note passing?”

We nodded. “We’re sorry, M-”

They waved away the apology. “I’m glad you’re making friends,” it was unclear who this was aimed at, “so you two don’t need to do the detention. It was solely to send a message to the others in the class.”

I sighed a sigh of relief, but the teacher wasn't done. “But no more notes, okay? Else I will give you both a real detention, got it?”

We nodded hurriedly. “Good, now get out of here.”

"What have you got now?" she asked me once we leave the classroom.

I checked my timetable. "It's lunch now, so… nothing?"

"Great, you're coming with me." she grabbed my hand and pulled me down the corridor, in the complete opposite direction of the school's canteen.

"Wait, what?"

Her hand remained tightly curled up around mine, sending sporadic electric pulses up and down my arm at random. I had never felt this feeling before, and certainly never experienced anything like this, an almost stranger dragging me around, before.

Daphne pushed open one of the fire exit doors, making sure not to let my arm go, as if I was a wild animal who would run at the first chance I got. I wouldn't: I was too curious about what's going on now. There was fear, under the curiosity, but I saw some teachers and students milling around, so I should be okay.

Daphne stopped in her tracks. "Frick."

She turned to me.

"Do you mind if we go to my locker really quick?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure." I shrugged. I mean, she was already leading the way, it's not as if I had anywhere else I needed to be.

She turned away from the path we were going to go down, and instead pulled me along a separate path, leading to what at first appears to be a clearing in a forest but was actually an open air corridor between what I realised was the PE department and the main school building. Along one side, under the cover of a tin roof, were a line of weather-beaten lockers.

There was, in fact, a forest on one side of the corridor, opposite the school. It’s as if the corridor was the how the forest infiltrated the school, a thought I tried not to shiver at given how creepy the forest seems, and it was midday: imagine this place at night. I shuddered and tried to distract myself.

Daphne's locker was exactly how I would've imagined it would be: it was painted purple on the exterior, with a garish faux pink fur interior, and little accent green token pieces.

She opened it and pulled out a Chapstick from a makeup bag stored inside. It was cherry, and surprising: from what I'd learned about this girl in the past hour, which was not a lot, granted, I would not have pegged her to be a Chapstick person. She seemed to be more of designer lip gloss kind of person, but each to their own.

She uncapped the Chapstick and used the mirror on the back of her locker door to apply it.

"So, em, you never answered my question?" I asked her.

She glanced up, but her gaze drifted dramatically away from me. Her Chapstick froze in place momentarily before she hurriedly capped it and put it away. "Hey, do you see--?"

A loud, high pitched scream pierced the air.

Both Daphne and I whirled around like crazy, looking for the source. Daphne glanced at me and gave me a wide, mischievous grin.

"C'mon, let's go!"

She grabbed my hand again and we started to run as fast as we possibly could towards the direction where the scream seemed to have come from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the "past" section is so much longer! It was originally going to be two separate works, but then the plot lines sort of got tangled up into each other? So I scrambled to put what I'd already written together and ended up with this.
> 
> Plus I'm a really big sucker for this kind of present-then-past-then-back-to-now-etc format: it just so fun to write!
> 
> Also sorry that it's a Christmas special being released 11 days after Christmas. But hey! By the time the finale rolls around, it'll probably be mid-July. And that's without all the unplanned extra scenes I'll probably end up writing on a whim! Christmas in July, anyone?


	2. Chapter 2

**_ Daphne, now: _ **

I see Mum as I ease the car up the driveway. Her jagged and sharp-angled silhouette is clean cut against the backdrop of the Restless Tops which encompass Crystal Cove. Her grey cardigan matches her monochrome aesthetic upheld by the rest of her outfit, and her grey hair sprinkled with a couple silver strands. Obviously, I know that as time passes, people age, but it still startled me because… well, she is my _mum_ , she’s always been practically immortal.

Mum greets me at the door as I get out of the rental car. She gestures to her assistant to get my bags out of the back, and I let her.

“Lovely to have you back, dear.” She smiles, but it looks awkward, like she’s forgotten how to smile. “Your room is just as you left it.”

I smile but say nothing. I don’t really know what to say.

It’s been so long, since we last talked, that it feels like there’s a boundary between us. She reaches out, hesitantly, to touch my shoulder, but changes her mind and just leads me into the kitchen.

“Do you want a drink?” she glances back at me for a reaction, “Tea? Coffee?”

“I’ll have a coffee, please.” It’s like we’re dancing around each other, watching the other’s reactions, trying our best to communicate, but failing. “Black is fine.”

“Oh, that’s new.” she says as she fixes up my drink, “You would only have coffee if it had more sugar and milk than coffee, before.”

I nod. “I learned to like black coffee. It’s better for business meetings: it makes you seem more capable.”

I don’t know why I tell her this, it seems a bit cruel to say. And very corporate for this context.

She hands me the mug with a strained smile.

“You need to get away from work a bit. I know we taught you to work hard, but it’s important to take breaks, too.” I remember her telling me on the phone, trying to convince me to come home for the holidays. She says nothing now. 

“How are you guys?” I ask, “Has much changed since I’ve been gone?”

I take a sip of my coffee. It’s too sweet: force of habit, I suppose.

Mum looks delighted at the opening, as if she believes she’s getting me to open up and talk more, when the exact opposite is happening. She starts to tell me about how there’s a new bakery and cinema, telling me I should check them both out, she tells me about how Blockbuster shut down and the nearest shopping mall has been a whole lot emptier due to the rise of “online services” like Amazon and online stores.

I smile, and nod, and interject with the templated “oh wow!”, “oh, no”, “yep”, etc, when needed. I let my coffee go cold.

Eventually, Dad emerges from wherever he was hiding, and we all have dinner together. Dinner is a healthy vegetable soup (Dad is trying to cut down on cholesterol, as per doctor’s advice), whole wheat bread, and vegan butter.

Dad, too, fills me in on a decade’s worth of news (there’s a new cinema which has better movies than Blockbuster ever did, and they have a couple’s night on Thursdays. There’s also a new community center which has a gym but it’s not as good as the one upstairs, “but I suppose when you don’t have a gym at home, any gym will do”. I’m glad he sees how rich he actually is, and that what he has isn’t the ordinary, or the expected. I remember struggling with that in middle school.)

Mum decides we should all watch a Christmas movie together, so she puts on _Home Alone_. We’re all quite bored, I can tell. It’s been a while since any of us were part of the target demographic. Dad falls asleep, and Mum leaves early (“I’m quite tired, so I’m going to bed. Tell your Dad to head up when he wakes up from his nap.” He does so about twenty minutes after she heads up.).

I get out my laptop and start doing some work. I don’t really need to: it’s just something to do, and it feels right. I let _Home Alone_ keep playing. I don’t really know why, to be honest, it just feels weird not to have some noise in such a large house.

Around 8 o’clock, I hear the door buzz. Lyle had already gone home by this point (Mum decided he should go home for the holidays, so he left promptly at 6, and isn’t expected back until after New Year’s), so I contemplate going to answer it for a moment.

Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut, sink further into the sofa, and hope whoever it is will go away. I don’t want to talk to anyone, especially not if there’s a chance that they could be someone I knew from before I got the hell out of this place.

They do not leave, whoever it is.

I groan, but slowly get up. I let _Home Alone_ keep playing, it’s not like I was very focused on it anyway.

I don’t bother looking at the screen: it’ll probably be too dark to see who it is anyway.

“Hi?” I press the button and speak into it. “Who is it?”

“Hello! Is Lyle there? I have a couple leaflets for the Church’s Christmas Faire and the bakery that I think the Blakes might be interested in.” A cheerful, and slightly familiar, voice replies through the speaker.

I suppress a groan. The last thing I wanted to do was-

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and pinch the bridge of my nose as I lean against the wall. There’s no way I can get out of this now, is there? They already know I'm here. 

I press the button again. “Lyle’s not here, but you can come up to the house and drop off the leaflets.”

“Okay, I’ll be up in a minute!”

**_ Velma, 1994: _ **

We ran towards the source of the scream, and came across a small, one storey building with four rooms. Three of the four had dark and empty windows, but one was brightly lit.

"Is this part of the school?" I asked Daphne. I hadn't been taken here when I was given a tour of the school this morning.

"Yeah." Daphne nodded, rather absentmindedly, "This is where the special Ed classes used to be held."

" 'used to be'?" I prompted.

"They moved them inside the main school after something happened. -- why is there a light on? No one should be here right now."

"Let's find out then, shall we-?" I started to say before another scream pierced the air around us.

We shared a quick glance, and the next course of action became at once crystal clear. We ran across the small courtyard of grass, up the few steps, and slammed open the door, then peered inside.

Nothing.

It was a nearly empty classroom, and that was all it is at first glance. There was some random newspapers in a cluster in the corner, as if someone had made a small bed out of them. Chairs and desks were stacked up against the wall, save one set which stood solitary in the centre of the room.

I took a few steps from the door and reached the wall, the paint cracked and peeling as if they were trying to pull away from the wall itself, but couldn't quite.

I glanced around the room again. Daphne was on the opposite side of the room, looking through the newspapers.

"Find anything?" I asked her.

"Yeah, thi-" she started. She was raising her arm, something clutched in her fist.

"Ruh-oh." a voice said from outside. There was no one at the door yet, but I knew we only have a few seconds to hide before whoever it is came in.

Quickly, I grasped Daphne's hand and pulled her into a small cavity between the stacks of chairs and tables, and the wall. The space was quite small, so we were almost cheek to cheek, and our limbs had gotten tangled in the semi-fall.

"Jeepers," Daphne said, "this isn't the best first day for you, huh?"

"Shush!" I told her as I saw a dark silhouette form in the window frame.

They were tall and bulky, they could have easily be 6 feet tall, and took slow, ambling steps. I dreaded to imagine the person who was going to emerge from the door in a few seconds, and even more what they could do if they find us.

"Scoobs, I think we have another mystery on our hands." a voice said. It's not one I had been expecting at all. It was somewhat high and the stresses on words were placed oddly.

Even more odd was the owner of the voice: tall, yes, but certainly not bulky. They were lanky and the green t-shirt hung loosely from their nearly non-existential shoulders. It turned out the bulky silhouette was caused by the large dog the boy was carrying, presumably named "Scoobs"?

When the pair saw that nothing threatening was in the room, the dog jumped down from the boy’s arms. “See, Scoobs, nothing to worry about.”

“I wasn’t ruh-rried, you was ruh-rried.”

A flash of something red caught my eye as the pair spoke-

At this precise moment, Daphne sneezed, and the dog immediately leaped back into the boy’s arms, the boy’s knees buckled slightly, and they trembled on the spot.

"Z-zoinks! Who's the-the-there?" the boy asked.

"Sorry!" I called out, "it's just us."

I clambered out from behind the stack and helped Daphne untangled herself from the chair legs. She smiled up at me, and my chest felt a little fuzzy inside. Daphne turned away from me, and towards the boy and the dog.

"I'm Daphne," she said to the pair, "and this is Velma. You are…?"

They both stood up straighter and saluted as they introduce themselves. Ha, geeks.

And that was coming from _me_.

"I'm Shaggy," the boy said, "and this is Scooby Doo."

"Ruh-st call me Scooby." the dog said. I was momentarily startled by the dog talking, but as Daphne didn’t react in any way, I ignored it and planned to ask her later.

"Oh! You guys are the school's detective club, right?" Daphne asked.

I took this as my cue to keep looking around the abandoned classroom for clues. There had been something red in the corner by the wall, so I started searching around for that…

"Yep." Shaggy replied. "Not that we've actually solved many mysteries, all we've really done is 'investigate' the kitchen."

I steadily crawled into the space behind the stack again and saw the flash of red again. It was too far away to reach it or to see what it is, so I crawled in further and stretched out as much as I can.

I stumbled, and the chairs gave way slightly, startling me.

"Speaking of which, what are you guys doing here?" Shaggy asked.

I looked up. "We heard a scream, so we're trying to find out where it came from."

Looking back at where the red thing was, I now saw that it had vanished. That was… odd.

I got out of the cavity and quickly brushed myself of any dust I had collected by crawling around.

"So, you're investigating, too?" Shaggy asked, "Wait, what if we joined forces?"

Daphne and I looked at him with blank faces.

"Yeah, you guys would get the respect of being in the official club, and we get the numbers we need for a classroom headquarters."

"Exactly how many other people are there in this club of yours?" I asked, a faint idea of the answer already forming in my head.

"Em..." Shaggy tailed off and seemed to shrink a little into himself. He gestured to himself. "Well, technically, one."

He gestured to the dog, who bowed. “And two.”

Daphne and I shared a glance. This was starting to become a trend. "Yeah." Daphne looked away first. "We'll join your club."

Shaggy brightened up instantaneously. "Now that that's out of the way, we've got a mystery to solve!"

Shaggy struck a pose, as if this was a sixties TV show and we were going for a commercial break. Scooby does the same, and they looked at us expectantly.

Daphne shrugged, so we both joined in, and struck a pose.

Nothing seems to happ-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably use "Mom" instead of "Mum", considering Scooby Doo is an American show, but... "Write what you know", and "Mom" just feels weird to write.
> 
> Any guesses for who the "familiar voice" belongs too? (it's kinda obvious given the small pool of characters so far, but oh well) Come back next Sunday (hopefully) for the next chapter! :)
> 
> Thank you for reading so far!  
> -MoonRenegade


	3. Chapter 3

**_ Daphne, now: _ **

A couple minutes pass, and I hear whoever it is approach. Their footsteps in the gravel are particularly loud in contrast to the silence of the early night. I miss the low hum of noise of New York. It’s comforting to never feel truly alone, sometimes.

I open the door before they get a chance to knock, wanting this encounter to last as little time as possible.

The person seems a little stunned, but promptly lowers their raised fist, which they presumably were going to use to knock. I don’t get a chance to inhale before they launch into a speech. As they talk, they pull some leaflets out of their bag and wave it around to accentuate their words.

"Hi! I just wanted to drop these leaflets off-"

I see now why the voice was vaguely familiar. She's still wearing her iconic orange and red, although the outfit is generally slightly better fitted, now. She’s wearing a red faux leather coat over her classic orange knitted jumper and red pleated skirt, presumably to keep out the December chill. She’s also traded her orange knee high socks for thick orange winter tights. A faded red hair ribbon is keeping her hair back in a loose ponytail, and a delicate silver chain necklace with a cross on it dangles from her neck. The jumper she’s wearing now is not the same one that she would _never_ take off when we were kids (her Dad’s old jumper).

I hide a small smile. I never thought I’d see the day, especially given the meaning behind the jumper, that Velma doesn’t wear that garish thing.

There’s no denying it now: it’s Velma, plus a few years, of course.

She seems to recognise me too. "Daphne?"

I smile politely but don’t confirm nor deny. I don’t really know why. It’s not like I’m fooling anyone. I suppose I want her to just _know_.

She self-consciously neatens her hair and tugs at her hem. The texture of the doorstep seems at once fascinating, and I itch the stress spot above my ear. (is that a thing? I’ve always called it that, but I don’t really know-).

Neither of us say anything or look at each other for a moment, and the silence emphasises to me just how long it's been. Unable to resist the compulsion to look again, I lift my eyes.

Upon closer inspection, Velma has definitely changed. Her glasses, which had always been slightly too large for her face, now suited her much better. She'd also grown out her hair and actually done something about that god-awful fringe, so it now framed her face much better. She no longer looked like a mushroom, in short. It's as if the world now got to see what, when we were kids, only I saw.

Y’know, her potential, her natural amazingness. That thing.

Not that I think she’s-. Never mind.

Jeez, I didn’t think coming back here would make me think like a middle or high schooler again. That was such a terrible time.

I’m glad to see that she’s grown far more into her essence and become far more confident in herself in all the years, though. I watch her take in how I'd changed too, and have each little flaw magnified for me as I saw them from her perspective. I became way _too_ aware of the aftermath of spending four hours on a plane.

"You’re back home for Christmas?" she asks. As if I still call this hellhole of a town "home".

I lean against the doorframe again and cross my arms. She may have changed, for the better, but doesn't mean I want this conversation to last longer than it needs to.

"Just two weeks, then I'm going back home."

"Oh! You'll still be here for the Church's Christmas Faire, then!" she says brightly, handing me a leaflet. I protest, but she interrupts me, "You really should come along. It's mostly just fun activities: I know you're not that big on religion."

I remember one of the last times we talked, she was fiddling with the cross necklace that hangs from her neck now. She wasn’t very religious, either, when we first met, but-

“I missed you,” she blurts out. She looks a bit shocked about the fact she even said that, but after a moment of hesitation, she hugs me. Her arms wrap around my waist and I can feel her shivering a little as she lingers.

I feel tempted to pat her head, but it feels cruel, so I hug her back. For a moment it feels like we had synced up our breathing, and perhaps when we come apart, we would see our old selves, as if the past couple years had never happened.

She pulls back, and nothing has changed.

“Sorry, um, I should’ve-,”

“It’s okay. I need to head inside, so…” I start to close the door, “Byeee-”

As much as this conversation is not as bad as I expected it was going to be, it was still dredging up memories I wasn’t ready to confront yet.

“Wait!” she sticks her foot in the door, “Do you want to hang out sometime? Tomorrow, maybe? We could watch a Christmas movie at the cinema, or something.”

“I’m not _really_ into Christmas...”

“Please. For old time’s sake?” her eyes are pleading. I don’t know what she wants. Why would she want to ‘hang out’ with someone she hasn’t talked to in years? That seems like a nightmare to me.

Although, if it’s Velma, it might not be so bad, I could maybe make an exception-?

“We could catch up on everything. You really should see the new community centre. Did you know I helped design it?”

Of course, she f*cking did. Is there any way in which she _isn’t_ the girl my parents would give a kidney for me to bring home?

I realise I’d already decided when she first asked and relent. There’s still something in this girl that is… interesting, I suppose the word is. Probably just need to have the official closing of this chapter, or something.

“Sure,” I shrug, “I need to drop off this rental car anyway, so-.”

“Thank you!” her face brightens up and her smile is so wide I wouldn’t be surprised if it split her face in half, “Can I get your number, or…?”

I give her my number and add her to my contacts. Her hand lingers on my arm as she gave me her number, but she retracts it, when she sees me notice, without comment.

As she heads back up the driveway and back to the gate, she turns midway and waves at me. For some reason, I feel suddenly, and weirdly, protective of her, so I make sure she made it up the street okay, and she’d just become a tiny orange blob in the distance before closing the door. I feel a small stabbing sensation in my chest.

Maybe I’m not entirely over it after all.

*

**_ Velma, 1994: _ **

A case didn’t arrive for a fortnight after we joined Mystery Inc. Even then, I was pretty certain that the only reason we got the case in the end was (1) because we are the only mystery solving club in the school, and (2) the client who walked through the door was Fred.

He seemed distressed, his eyes like a startled animal about to die, and his usually immaculate hair was messy and all over the place. “I can’t take it anymore!” he thundered, “I’ve had enough of this horrid, truly horrid ghost messing up my life all the time-! “

Fred started throwing anything that wasn’t bolted down. We’d only just been allowed access to this abandoned classroom (apparently this school has a lot of them), so there wasn’t very much to throw around, although Fred certainly tried. Shaggy ducked down to avoid being smacked in the head with some encyclopaedias flying his way (he deserved it, he was the one we insisted we have them here in the first place), and Scooby cowers under the table closer to the door.

“Why can’t anything in the bloody town _stay dead_?” Fred, using his entire body, hurled a glass paper weight in my direction. I sidestepped, and it shattered on the wall behind me.

“Jinkies!” I yelp.

“Hey, Fred, maybe don’t-.“ Shaggy tried to gently suggest.

“ _Shut up!_ ” Fred moved to go flip one of the two desks in the room (the old vintage one we rescued from the skip), struggled for a minute, then moved towards the other one.

I would’ve laughed had I not been wary of having another incredibly dangerous object thrown at me.

Daphne, who had been getting snacks, walked through the door at this point. She surveyed the scene quickly before turning to Fred.

“Sit down.” She said in the most menacing voice I have ever heard from her. It’s so cold: it sent chills up and down my spine. Fred immediately sat down. On the concrete floor.

His face is hard to describe. It’s no longer the convulsing, frantic and trapped animal from just a minute ago, but it’s not quite the Fred I knew. It’s as if he’s reverted to a much younger version of himself.

“On a chair?” Daphne seemed so done with him already. She pulled out a chair for him, deposited the snacks on the table, then flopped down into a chair opposite Fred. “So. What’s up?”

Both Shaggy and I sat down next to Daphne. Shaggy ever so slowly inched his hand towards the snacks. Daphne, noticing this, rolled her eyes and slid the closer to him. She handed me some Scooby Snacks and a bag of M&Ms from the pile. She knew me well.

She also tossed some marshmallows at Fred, who nibbled at a few before putting the bag down. He seemed much calmer now. Now that he was still (or still-ish: his leg was bouncing under the table), I was able to get a better look at him.

I will admit, I hadn’t really noticed the subtle changes in Fred that past week but seeing him then forced me to. He had developed huge bags under his eyes, which were red rimmed. His skin was far tauter and in much worse condition. His hair looked greasy in addition to being windswept and clearly being bedhead. He doesn’t look like someone who was well-rested at all. It looked like he hasn’t showered in a while either. Or eaten, for that matter: he had lost a significant amount of weight.

Which was impressive for just a week of stress. Although, to be fair, given his erratic behaviour earlier, it seems to be… a lot.

“I thought you should know that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to.” Not enough to knock the snobby nature out of him, apparently. “My father just refuses to hire a _real_ detective or …”

“Or…?” Daphne prompted.

“I was getting to that.” he snapped back, his face, for a second, reverted back to the frantic creature.

“Sorry.” His voice and face softened again. He stared down at the table and picked at one of his nails absentmindedly. Realising what he’s doing, he stopped, and placed one hand on top of another.

I really didn’t trust this guy in the slightest, but Daphne seems unaffected. If Daphne trusted him this much, well then, I guess so did I.

As Fred sighed, his shoulders slump dramatically. When he looked up, his eyes seem darker and more serious than before.

That dramatic d*ck.

“I think my house is haunted.”

We all, save Daphne, burst into laughter. “So what? Half the houses here are!”

“Yes, but- “

Daphne, too, had a smirk on her face. “The school is haunted too.”

“Let me finish.” Fred was visibly pissed off, so I sneaked Scooby a Scooby snack under the table to shut him up, and not so subtly chucked another at Shaggy’s head. Regardless, it worked.

“What do you want from us, then?” I asked. What can I say, I was curious. What the hell causes a teenager to be in such a furious rage that they drive to a secondary location (in a rage), tear up some random students’ club headquarters (still in a rage), and then _still_ be able to calm down with the help of a harsh word and some marshmallows??

He slid a note towards Daphne. She picked it up, plays with it for a moment, then handed it to me, blatantly ignoring Shaggy and Scooby. To be perfectly honest, they didn’t seem to mind too much.

A sinking feeling in my stomach heightened. It was a yellowed piece of paper with words written on it in a red… it wasn’t not ink, I could tell that much. It wasn’t blood either, but it had similar properties. Judging by the typography (which been reminiscent of “bedtime stories” by Lars Manenschijn), this was probably written by an antique quill. I relayed this to Daphne and started decoding the words.

They weren’t in code or anything, the calligraphy was just hard to read.

“you shall pay for the pain I carried on into my afterlife with anguish of your own.

-that bloody ghost of the manor”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers, 
> 
> Sorry, there won't be a chapter this week as I've been quite ill this week and haven't had a chance to write the next chapter yet. (don't worry, I'm feeling better now!) I'll try to get the chapter out as soon as posssible, but I don't know exactly when that will be.
> 
> There'll be two chapters next Sunday, probably, or the late chapter will be released some point during the week.
> 
> Sorry again,
> 
> -MoonRenegade
> 
> edit from future MoonRenegade:
> 
> Sorry, this was a lie, I did not actually manage to write two chapters in a week as detailed in the note in the next chapter. Sorry again!

**_ Daphne, now: _ **

“Good morning.”

“Good morning to you, too.” I reply. Mum is brewing a cup of coffee when I come downstairs. She asks if I want one, and I nod. “Where’s your assistant? What’s her name, Anna?”

“Leanna. She went home for the holidays at the same time as Lyle. Did you not notice her leave?”

I shake my head. Looking around properly, I notice the little things that had changed while I was gone. Mostly, there was just generally less _stuff_. My parents had really started to embrace the minimalist life: it’s as if they’re having a competition about how well they can hide what “little” they have (I know for a fact that there’s a storage room somewhere, knowing them).

I don’t say anything. Last night’s conversation with Velma was still replaying in my head, over and over. Why on earth did I agree-?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Mum asks as she hands me the mug. It’s got sugar in it again.

“Velma came over yesterday.” I dig out the leaflets she had given me and pass them to her. I start making a fruit salad for breakfast. “I’m going into town to meet her later today.”

I was facetiming one of my real friends back in New York last night, as they were getting ready in the morning, when she texted me. My friend, Makaela, asked who it was.

“Just an old friend.”

“An old friend who makes you pull that same stupid face you made when Hannah told you she liked you? Actually, I think this face might be stupider.” she had teased.

“ _Bye_ , Makaela.” I had said as I closed my laptop in order to focus solely on Velma’s text.

“Let me know how it goes! Hey, Daph, you’ll let me know, ri-?” she was cut short.

The text was just to arrange when to meet, of course, but it still felt… I don’t know, really. As if a part of me felt like I wanted it to mean more? I give up. “Feelings” were never my strong suit anyway. _Business_ , now that’s more my jam: clear rules, boundaries, and rewards.

We decided on ten o’clock, outside the community centre.

_Great, see you then!_

_Also, get some sleep son, okay? It’s late._

_Good night!_ _😊 <3_

_-Velma_

I had thought about calling Makaela back after that but decided against it. She would’ve just have just teased me about Velma. And pry into the past. And try to dig up dirt in Velma. The last thing I wanted was someone, especially Makaela, going through whatever remains of my nightmare of a past. That girl would ship anything that breathes within a two-mile radius of each other.

I struggled to sleep a little after that. Thank god for coffee, regardless of the sugar.

I pick up the newspaper discarded on the table, presumably by Dad, to see if there’s anything interesting in here as I eat my fruit salad.

Mum briefly scans the leaflets and nods. “She’s a nice girl, Velma. You kids used to be such good friends. It’s a shame, really.”

“Hm?” I wasn’t really listening. There was an article about some new bakery that apparently had great Instagram-able pastries.

“You know, the whole affair in your junior year. And that girl, what was her name?”

“Maddy?” I look up. Exactly what I’d tried to escape from.

“Yes! Maddy. She was really quite adorable. Made good cookies, too.”

Mum just stares outside the window for a moment, as if the memory she has of Maddy is running around the front lawn at this exact moment. She has a wistful smile on her face, which tears my heart in two. _I don’t need this to come back now, not when I’d been running for so long_.

I hurriedly finish off my fruit salad, stand up, clean up, and start to leave. I don’t think I can stay here, in this room, in this house, in this town, for much longer. “I need to go get ready to meet Velma.”

Mum breaks out of her trance for a minute, acknowledges my leaving, then goes back to busying herself with whatever she had been doing prior to my entrance into the kitchen.

As soon as I know I’m out of sight, I sink into my favourite spot on the stairs with a sigh. It’s a hidden little cubby where no-one can see you, but you can see everyone. Brings back memories. Good ones, for once. I used to hide here whenever I played hide and seek with the staff, or if I needed some time to think. I used to hide my “cherished treasures” in here, like Bunny.

Why did I come back here? I had known that it would bring back up the nightmare of the past, yet here I am, in the midst of having every other conversation digging up another old memory that had been buried under years of therapy and counselling. I bury my head in my arms and contemplate crying.

Instead, I check my phone.

It’s an hour until I need to go meet Velma. I guess it’s time to get my stuff and drop off the rental car, then. Pulling my self up out of the cubby hole, I dust myself off and make my way to my childhood bedroom. Phone, keys, purse, quick glance in the mirror, and I’m ready to go.

**_ Velma, 1994: _ **

“So, what are we going to do?”

Fred had briefed us on his situation, properly, after Daphne sat him down. Essentially, this past week a ghost, a malicious one, had been haunting his house and threatening to kill him and the rest of his family through notes like the one he had shown us. His father, however, is refusing to acknowledge it, let alone call the correct services to deal with it. Apparently, he keeps insisting that Fred is making it up in order to get attention.

“‘We’?” I asked.

“Well, I’m helping you, aren’t I?” Apparently even a ghost threatening his life didn’t knock his egoism out of him. He stood up to make his point. “I’m practically an honorary member, if not a full member.”

“Look here, Fred, you’re a _client_.” Daphne pushed him back into his chair and leaned over him menacingly. Something about the way he had looked at Daphne was unsettling me, in the worst way. “ _We_ make the plans, _you_ pay _us_.”

He scowled. “ _Fine_.”

An awkward silence settled over the room, and a little knife of guilt stabbed my stomach. Something told me that Daphne wouldn’t be like this if I wasn’t there. Just a feeling, though, so it was unlikely.

Daphne turned to me.

“Hey, Velma, any working theories about the ghost?” she asked. I prayed a little to God for blessing me for such a life saver.

I nodded and glanced down at the notebook I had scribbled notes into as Fred was talking based on the note and his testimony, and opened the club’s laptop (the school let us have one after we nagged them constantly, and Velma threatened to bring down her parents on the staff) to quickly research and confirm. Nothing too difficult, I just needed to find the file they kept it in.

“I’m thinking a _keres_ , but a recent incarnation given that he’s only started bothering Fred in the last week. Or maybe something disturbed their sleep?” I said.

Daphne looked at Fred. “Any of this sound familiar?” The page I was trying to load was taking _forever_.  
  


He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.” The loading icon was spinning, and spinning, and spinning.

“Very helpful of you. Maybe a _mogwai_ or _yuan gui_? The reference to pain and blood would suggest a _Phi Tai Hong,_ or a _keres_ again.” Got it.

I spun around the laptop. “Take a look at this. I hacked into your parents' lawyer’s computer to access your family records and found some old maps of your family estate. If you look _really_ closely here,” I pointed at the screen. “you can see there’s a burial ground in your back lawn.”

Daphne and Fred leaned closer to see the screen. Scooby and Shaggy had long ago tuned out and were just having a competition on who could eat the most sandwiches.

“Hey! That’s where Dad’s building another pool.”

“And _that_ , would be the cause of the ghost disturbing you. Case closed, goodbye!” Daphne snapped the laptop shut as she stressed the last word's two syllables. Both Fred and I took a sharp breath, for different reasons. (I pray to god, again, that all of my work had saved)

“No!” Fred slammed his hands onto the desk. Shaggy and Scooby looked up from their competition and sheepishly lowered their sandwiches. Fred looked startled at the sound and softened his stance. “Please, you’ve got to help me get rid of the ghost.”

I looked towards Daphne. She was looking at me expectantly. I knew exactly what she wanted me to say, but she was going to let me decide: she had that look in her eye. I tried to get her to say it instead, it would be easier for me if I didn’t have to. I suppose she just wanted Fred and I to get along.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay.”

Fred’s stress, which had visibly been weighing him down since he came in, dripped off him in waves. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you-!”

“Yeah, yeah, save that for after we save your life.” Daphne moved towards the calendar on the wall. “Are you guys doing anything this weekend?”

We all shook our heads.

“Great, Fred, are your guest rooms still open? We’re going to have a two-day sleepover and there’s no way I’m sleeping on your couch.”

Fred nodded.

“Perfect.” Daphne wrote “Fred’s” on this weekend n the calendar and circled it a few times in red marker. “Pack your bags, gang, we’re solving a mystery.”

“Well, actually, we’re purging a house-.” Shaggy tried to interject. Apparently, they _had_ actually been listening, at least a little.

“Shut up, _loner_.” Fred’s tone at once became harsh and cold.

Daphne stared him down.

He chuckled nervously. “Joking…!”

“You better be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Daphne like this is weird because of the way I want her to go. Welp, she'll get there in the end, let's hope!
> 
> Thank you for reading so far, and come back next Sunday for more!
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I cannot write two chapters in one week, or at least not 4000 words at a coherent level (it ended up mostly being "so okay, okay, okay sit down stand no sit"), so this chapter was meant to be last week's chapter. 
> 
> Essentially I'm a week behind, sorry about that.
> 
> I know I sort of promised I would try to fix it, but, as it turns out, making promises when you're not entirely 100% better yet is a bad idea. Who knew.
> 
> (also don't worry, it was nothing serious, I'm fine, my brain simply wasn't in the best state to write)
> 
> Again, sorry.   
> -MoonRenegade

**_ Daphne, now: _ **

I suppose that at one point, Crystal Cove's central town, or rather a street plus a couple alleyways, (it can barely be called a city) was beautiful. When the streets were bright and clean of years’ worth of trodden on gum, and when moss and various other green weeds weren't sprouting through cracks in the pavement, and when old buildings were still treasures and not financial liabilities. But old building got older, and the tallest trees got taller, and time ticked on. I suppose I had changed more that this town had.

Returning the rental car was no hassle, took barely ten minutes. I was left with a little over half an hour, and nothing to do, so I decided to cut the philosophical bullsh*t and just wander around. There wasn't very much to do.

A small part of the forest that hems in Crystal Cove, on the side opposite the cove part, had been tamed into a park, or "public nature reserve", as the sign outside proclaims. It's quiet now, in the winter. Not dead silence, the hum of life can still be heard, but certainly quiet. All the birds have migrated, although climate change has resulted in Crystal Cove having a relatively mild winter. No chance of a white Christmas, I've already checked.

A couple dried twigs crack under my shoes, and the sound breaks the not quite silence. It's been a long time since I've heard that sound outside of films. I tread onwards.

I know this part. Or, I did. The gang used to come to a clearing near here in the summertime, sometimes. Usually just Velma and I, to be honest: Fred wasn't the biggest fan of "the great outdoors", and Shaggy and Scooby tended to forget. Or sleep in. Or get lost. I don't think we minded.

Here's that clearing now. It's exactly as I remembered it. The Babbling Brook meander through the middle of it, water clear as glass, as cold as it too. Large, flat gray-brown rocks lounge on the riverbeds, perfect for drying off on after you "accidentally" fall into the river. It was only waist deep but jumping in was safe enough. I daren't now: I'd probably freeze to death.

They're still there. The inscriptions we'd made. Just a couple scratches representing our initials, and a promise.

A stupid, stupid, broken promise.

It's nearly time to go meet Velma, so I make my way back to the community centre. It's the only building in Crystal Cove that's younger than me. It's a fairly large building compared to the others around it, maybe two or three floors. They were quite generous with the windows, too. The floor to ceiling windows must've been Velma's touch: I remember talking about it when we were kids. It’s ironic, those windows let everything in, yet Velma always hid everything away. From me, at least.

Speaking of Velma: she's here, sitting on a bench outside of the community centre reading a book. Something about baking. She looked… peaceful. A lock of hair slipped from behind her ear and she glanced up as she corrected it. She saw me, and the spell was broken.

“Oh! Hi.” she stands up briskly and brushes herself off. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long, I only just got here.” I smile at her. “Shall we go to that café you were telling me about?”

She nods and starts to lead the way. I take another glance at the community centre’s windows.

“You coming?” she asks a little ahead of me.

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” I jog a little to catch up to her, and smile.

**_ Velma, 1994: _ **

That Friday afternoon, after convincing Mum to let me go with a lot of difficulty, we all met at the school’s car park. Fred and Daphne were already there by the time Shaggy, Scooby, and I got out of Algebra I. I was able to see them talking, but they stopped when they saw us approach. Daphne beamed at us.

“Well, shall we get going?” she asked.

Fred led us to a white van in the corner of the parking lot, which looked exactly like the iconic Stranger Danger, “Free Candy Van” that my Mum and teachers had warned a younger me about. Daphne must have seen the look on my face, because she took my hand into hers and squeezed it. _It’s going to be okay_ , the squeeze said, _I’m here for you_.

Or maybe I was just overthinking it and her hands were just cold again. Either way, she said “Fred’s had his provisional license since he was fourteen, so he’s allowed to drive us around.”

Daphne takes shotgun next to Fred, at his insistence, and Shaggy, Scooby, and I piled up in the back. Despite outward appearances, Fred’s van was actually quite nice on the inside. There was plush blue carpet on the floor which matched the pleather seats we were sitting on and the ice box cooler my feet were tucked under. When I looked behind me, the boot was quite spacious, and doubled as a single bed. Judging by the seats, you could probably turn the bed into a double if you folded down the seats. There was also a spare seat between us and where Daphne and Fred were sitting, but they weren’t far away enough that I couldn’t reach them without leaning much. Overall, it was not bad.

Apparently, it would take us twenty minutes to get there. Of those, we drove in silence for the first couple minutes, which I spent staring out the window watching the town fly by, before Shaggy and Scooby couldn’t take it anymore and started scarfing down some of the sandwiches Daphne had brought for us. In order to make them stop, and pay attention, Fred asked me about some of the research I had been doing. Daphne must have told him about it, because I certainly hadn’t.

Fred did genuinely seem interested, however, so I pull out the laptop I had “borrowed” from the school and opened the notes I had made. “Right, so… I looked into your home’s history and found some pretty interesting stuff.”

“Oh?”

“There are three possible people haunting you: A confederate soldier, a murdered woman, and a nature spirit. Which do you want to hear about first?”

“The nature spirit sounds the nicest, lets hear about that one.” Shaggy interjects.

“Okay. The nature spirit, according to certain sources, is called Imes. They’re the spirit of the oak tree that resides over the burial ground. There’s a whole bunch of news articles in the archives about people meeting them. I’m guessing your Dad is going to cut the tree down?”

Fred nodded without taking his eyes off the road. “It’s a shame, I really liked that tree. I used to play on the rope swing on it.”

“That’s probably what’s gotten them riled up enough, if your ghost _is_ Imes, to haunt you. If we want to stop the haunting, we’ll have to convince your Dad not to cut down the tree and reassure Imes that we’re not trying to kill them.” I said. “Who do you wanna hear about now? The murdered lady or the confederate soldier?”

“Tell me about the woman.” Daphne shifted in her seat, so she was turning as much of her body towards me, listening intently for the answer. “Who was she? Why was she murdered?”

“Records show that her name was Phoebe Evans-Knight. Story goes that her family, the Evans, were an upper-class family slowly going bankrupt, as with many upper-class families at the time, due to her father’s poor finance decisions.”

Shaggy and Scooby were starting to drift from the conversation again, so I tossed them each a Scooby snack.

“In a last-ditch effort to save the family, the Evans decided to marry Phoebe off to an up-and-coming gentleman, Robert Knight. Although Robert wasn’t upper-class by any means, he had actually grown up quite poor, he had quite a lot of money as he ran a successful business of producing and selling iron and steel, both of which were expensive at the time. If Phoebe and Robert got married, it would be good for both, as the Evans get the cash injection they need, and Robert gets a boost in his social status.”

“Oh! Is this a love story? Was Phoebe in love with someone else? Did she and Robert love each other?” Daphne asked, her face filled with curiosity.

“Not quite. The night of the wedding day, when they were expected to consummate the marriage, Robert killed Phoebe.”

“Well that took a dramatic twist.” Daphne’s voice was nonchalant.

“What about the Confederate soldier?” Fred asked.

“Hopefully it your ghost isn’t him. The ghosts of soldiers, especially those on the losing side, tend to be violent and stubborn, insisting that until their side wins, they won’t move on to the afterlife. And, y’know… “

“The Confederates didn’t win.” Daphne filled in for me. “Well, let’s just hope its just Phoebe, she seems nice. Or Ines, actually, they seemed easy to deal with.”

Daphne turned back forwards in her seat. She leaned forwards in her seat as a large mansion started to appear on the hill in front of us. It had two wings on either side, with an annex attached on one side and a terrace sticking out the other (it had a little garden area underneath). Fred drove around the circular driveway, parked it and got out.

“Looks like we’re here.” Daphne said as she unclipped her seat belt.

“Could you take them to my room while I park the van?” Fred asked her.

“Is it still in the annex?”

“Yeah.”

Daphne smiled and got out of the van, motioning for us to do the same. She led us through the side building. The interior of the building was far more modern than the exterior, which definitely made sense given that Fred lived here. The annex was clearly where Fred lived, not the main house: there was a living room, a kitchen, and a “study room”. And also, the sign on the door that simply said “Fred”.

Shaggy and Scooby flopped down onto one of the sofas and started flicking through TV channels. Daphne started wandering around and inspecting little details around the annex. She walked towards a wall which feature a couple framed photos of Fred as a little kid. With a small sad smile, she took a photo off the wall, to see it better presumably.

I stepped closer, and she tilted the photo slightly towards me. It showed Fred, a tiny grinning kid with sticky up hair, hugging an equally tiny ginger haired child with the same purple and green aesthetic as the one holding the photo.

“We used to be so close as little kids.” she uttered quietly, “Our families would have business events we had to go to, and we were the only ones under the age of thirty, at best.”

As if summoned, Fred opened the door. “Well, shall we go find our ghost?” he asked.

“Okay. Shaggy, Scooby?” Daphne called to them. They mumbled and groaned but got up after some cajoling from Daphne, and a couple threats from Fred about feeding them to the ghosts, and followed Fred out the door, leaving me alone with Daphne.

Gently, she put the frame back on the wall, sighed and painted a smile on her face. “Well, I guess we grew up.”

She opened the door and gestured to it. “After you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**_ Daphne, now: _ **

Velma and I wander around the town, side by side, hands almost but not quite touching, basking in the commercialised Christmas festivity. She’s supposed to be leading the way, but this works too. Fairy lights deck every wall, Mariah Carey blares from every store’s loudspeaker, paper snowflakes plastered on every window. Kids run around, wrapped up like the presents they’re awaiting in a week and a half’s time, even though the forecast said it’s barely going to be chilly. Various ‘Festive Offers’ are advertised in shop windows, each trying to shout each other down through colour and design. It all makes me feel … slightly nauseous.

“Do you not like Christmas?” she asks me, her nose scrunching up, “What are you, a Grinch?”

“Hm, I guess so.” I suck my teeth in thought and sigh, “Not a big fan to be honest.”

“Why?” she queries. She looks down at my hand for what feels like the thousandth time. She bites her lip, undecided, but says nothing else.

“Well, firstly, it’s hugely commercial and it’s all just about making money for big business.”

“Like the one you work for?” She’s got a point. “Here.” She gestures to a small shopfront that I would never have noticed without her pointing it out.

It’s a two storey, brick building tucked neatly into the two buildings on either side like a small child between their parents, with an entire glass front wall so you can see inside to the hipster-style kitchen and bar. Weak, winter sunshine casts light onto the interior. Old-fashioned, bare wood round tables are littered around the shop with clusters of mismatched chairs around them. The second floor has a small terrace, and I can just make out a very yellow room leading into it, which Velma helpfully informs me is called the Sunshine Room (which is available to rent as a party venue). Apparently, there’s also a tiny garden out back where the Keller’s had their wedding last year. A wrought iron sign hangs above the door, “The Hideout”.

“Oh!” I can’t help the sound escaping.

“I know right? It’s perfect.” She opens the door for me and gestures for me to go through.

Typical Velma. Way too nervous to make the first move but has absolutely no problem with following outdated forms for politeness as if they’re expected.

Inside, it’s incredibly cosy. The walls are painted a dark brown-maroon and decorated with work from local artists. Aside from the basic tables and chairs I could see from outside, there are small armchairs placed conveniently close to heat sources to create a warm and pleasant environment for reading and sipping a cup of coffee. Well, I guess it’s designed to be that way. There are bookcases on every wall, and a sign proclaims it to be a swap-what-you-take situation. The whole building is like a thrift store of a café, everything is from everywhere and is a mismatch, odd sock haven.

It’s so, so perfect.

A friendly, very camp waiter approaches us. “Table for two?”

We nod and he leads us to a small table right next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows but secluded from the rest of the café thanks to the stairs leading up to the Sunshine Room and its terrace. And the bathroom. Velma and I drape out coats onto the back of our chairs and sit down opposite one another. Velma got the Edwardian style wooden chair, and I got the 1920s inspired chair. Our waiter shows us where the menu is and leaves us decide.

“How long has this café been here?” I ask her.

“Two, three years, I think? It’s relatively recent.” she puts down her menu, “What are you having?”

“I don’t know. What’s good?”

I order for us when the waiter returns: a hot chocolate (with the usual holiday add-ons), a macchiato, and two buttercream banana cake slices, as per Velma’s recommendation. Hers arrives in an adorable round-bottomed mug with a smear of Nutella around the edge of the mug. I honestly can’t understand how she can bear that much sugar. We stay and chat at the café for long after our coffee cups and plates were empty, just talking about … everything. I don’t even know what came over me, it just felt like I could talk to her like I could to no-one else. We talked about life, about growing up, about everything.

After what felt like five minutes, but actually was a couple hours or so of talking, the café was closing. It’s only 1 o’clock, but I guess it _is_ a Sunday. Most places here are closed on Sundays. Lucky them. Nonetheless, the hot drinks warm us from the inside, keeping out the not-really-a-chill chill, as we walked back to my place. (Mum had texted me saying I had to bring her home for dinner. Brilliant, even this is, my parents controlling my social life, is the same as it was before I left. Thank God I got out of here.)

“Seriously, I don’t get you.” Velma says out of the blue as we walk along, interrupting my thoughts “How could you possibly hate Christmas?”

“Why should I have to get costly presents for family and friends to prove I ‘care’ about them?” I say

Velma stares at me deadpan. “You could make your own presents.”

“Pfft, yeah, right, because my parents will totally appreciate my crappy little DIY gifts. I’m not six, Velma.” I scoff. It’s just ridiculous, the entire notion of giving gifts solely because its apparently a dead stranger’s birthday. (It’s not even his actual birthday either.)

Velma thinks hard for a minute before getting an “eh, f*ck it” look on her face and making a U-turn. “C’mon, follow me!” she says, glancing back.

“Wait, where are you going?” She already a couple strides away from me and I need to raise my voice for her to hear me. A couple people turn around, wondering what the sound is.

She doesn’t slow down. “C’mon, pick up the pace!”

For a moment, I’m dumbfounded, finding myself suddenly alone. I contemplate for a second, barely a fraction of a second, of just going back to my parents’, before curiosity gets the better of me and I start to run.

“Hey, wait up for me!”

**_ Velma, 1994: _ **

The boys were already poking around the burial ground when we got there. While they were busy messing about, I started to get everything ready. I once again consulted the Divinations book I’d found in the library (long story), double checked I had everything, and started setting it up. I had to keep returning to the book, but in the end, it only took a couple minutes, especially after Daphne helped by lighting the candles I had placed in the circle.

When it was done, there was an outer ring of salt and sand, a middle ring of lit candles (I couldn’t find unscented ones, so it smells _very_ strongly of peach), space for the human circle, a star sprinkled across the circle with rose water, and the oldest map of the burial ground I could get my hands on. It’s not quite the original, but it’s close enough that it shouldn’t matter too much.

I gestured for the others to join me. Fred and Shaggy both ignored me until Daphne coughed meaningfully, at which point they both grinned embarrassedly and joined us in the circle. We each kneeled and held hands in a circle. I instructed them to close their eyes and keep them closed until I was done with the incantation.

I took a deep breath and began to chant.

“ _¿ereht uoy era, Imes, yrc ym reaH ¿em raeh uoy nac !dnoyeb mlaer eht fo striripS_ ”

Imes was first on my list. I figured we should start with the easiest. No need to make this unnecessarily difficult.

“Hello?” an extremely slow voice says from behind Fred. The oak tree behind him had developed a face and was now talking to us. The face seemed simultaneously old and young, the features seemed to be like a fluid: constantly shifting and changing.

“Hello!” Shaggy said. “I’m Shaggy, what’s your-?”

He had his hand out and was about the approach Imes, and step out of the circles, so I grabbed his sleeve and shook my head.

“Stay in the circles.”

Shaggy pouted, but did as he was told.

“Who are you?” the voiced called out.

“We’re … I’m Fred, I live here.” Fred replied, “And these are my friends.”

“Friends” is a loose term.

“Someone’s been haunting me these past couple weeks. Was it you?”

Imes just stared blankly at Fred for a couple seconds. And then, in a perfectly ordinary speed: “Why the f*ck would I care about you enough to haunt you?”

Fred was quite clearly stunned and taken back. “Wh-…What?”

“Your Dad is gonna kill me, why the hell would I want to be around his snotty-nosed, narcissistic kid in my dying moments?”

Fred’s mouth hung open, and Daphne, already sick of all this, nudged him to the side and took over the situation.

“Hi, Daphne here, do you know who’ _s_ been haunting Fred, then?”

“Do you think I f*cking have? I keep to myself, and the others keep to themselves, too. Why don’t you guys f*cking leave me as well.”

Imes did their best to try to turn away from us, which was pretty impressive given that the oak tree was literally rooted to the ground.

It was clearly not a question, so when Daphne glanced at me, I nodded and cleared the incantation. As soon as it’s cleared, the face disappears, and I start the second one. It’s a little messy, but luckily Phoebe didn’t seem to mind too much.

Because she quite literally refused to get up. Oh, her ghost rose up for sure, she passed through the map and caused it to flutter a little, but she was asleep, and nothing we did would wake her up. Her dim blue glow wavered at best, and her floating, curled up figure barely stirred when Scooby leaped through her. I felt sorry for her: it had never occurred to me that people killed in their sleep would be stuck sleeping in the afterlife. And she didn’t seem to be having a very pleasant dream either. In the end, I just sent her back as it was starting to get dark, and I really, really, didn’t want to be here anymore.

Finally, it was Thomas Adams.

He looked like every Confederate soldier I had seen in history textbooks and online: he was young-ish, in his early twenties, unshaven, unkempt, gaunt, but tough from months of difficult living. Or difficult afterlife, it was hard to tell. His uniform was too big for him and had buttons missing, and if history taught me anything, as it was probably from a dead soldier. The woollen hat atop his head was grey and ancient. Not as ancient as the ones in museums now, but it looked as if it was more patchwork than hat. He had a white shirt, more a grey-blue than white, and had horseshoes nailed into the soles of his shoes. He also carried a small rolled-up blanket, a haversack, a cloth-covered canteen, a tin cup, and a small frying pan in a backpack like thing on his back. He clutched the Enfield rifle in his hand, obviously stolen from a Union soldier. The bayonet and scabbard was attached to the right of his belt, and he was shot up, clearly still bearing the wounds that killed him.

And he looked _pissed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the cafe scene was honestly really fun. Almost made me actually go outside to a cafe.
> 
> Speaking of cafes, there is cake waiting for me, so goodbye, see you next Sunday!
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> -MoonRenegade


	7. Chapter 7

_ **Daphne, now:** _

Velma stops running outside another small shopfront. A bakery, to be precise. It, too, is a two-storey building with a glass front. There’s a little outdoor section with three tables sheltered by umbrellas attached to the tables themselves all fenced in with a rather ornate white wooden fence. Unlike the Hideout Café, this store is dark inside: it, too, must be closed on Sunday. The sign above the door reads “A Piece of Cake”.

Velma approaches the store, rooting around for something inside her bag.

“What are you doing?” I ask her, “Velma, it’s closed, why are we here?”

“Changing your mind.” Velma find whatever she was looking for and holds it aloft. “Aha!”

It’s a small, golden key attached to a couple of other keys in a ring. She unlocks the door and steps through, much to my astonishment. How the hell does Velma have the keys to this random bakery?

Without taking off her coat, she flips on the lights and heating, heads into the kitchen in the back and flipping through a massive tome on the counter, leaving me in the doorway. Out of curiosity, and to escape the slight chill, I follow her.

“Would you rather make Jammy Star Cookies or Mince Pie Brownies?” She

“Wait, slow down, are we allowed in here? It’s closed right?”

Velma stares at me blankly for a moment, and then bursts into laughter. “I own this bakery. It’s my _job_ to be in here.”

“Oh.”

She goes back to the tome and taps a page on it. “Jammy Star Cookies it is.”

She turns to me. “Could you weigh out the ingredients if I get them out for you and tell you how much we need?”

“Sure!”

“Wash your hands first, though.” She says as she goes back to the tome.

“I’m not a child, Velma,” I say, sticking my tongue out at her.

She glances up, laughs, and gestures for me to take off my coat. She also puts on some generic holiday music, and for once it doesn’t make me sick to my stomach.

Velma rattles off the usual expected ingredients (butter, flour, icing sugar, etc), instructs me to leave some butter out to heat to room temperature, and asks if I can separate the egg yolks (I can, but not well). She points to the food processor in the corner and tell me to put the butter and flour from the first set of ingredients (she gave me one for filling, one for dough) into it while she reads through the recipe again.

I do so, and she adds a pinch of what I presume is salt into the mixture before I blitz the lot together. When it starts to look like breadcrumbs, Velma switches it off, added the sugar, then turned it back on again. She does this for the remaining ingredients as I just awkwardly watch, not wanting to get into her way.

Eventually, she tips the dough onto the counter and directs me to knead it into a smooth ball while she lines some baking sheets with baking parchment. It’s surprisingly fun to do so. Maybe it’s just working together with Velma is the fun bit: we haven’t done anything like this in _years_.

Once I’m done, Velma cuts the dough ball into two, hands me one, and shows me how to pat it into a disc, then wrap to chill for a bit. She has a streak of flour on her face. I chuckle a little to myself while she’s not looking.

In the thirty minutes we have to wait for them to chill, Velma fixed us up two cups of tea to drink while we chat for a bit. We both sat at one of the tables in the back, I’m guessing it’s for the staff to eat and drink at given how comparably bare it is to the tables out front.

It’s nice to converse even more than we did at the café.

“Who’s your staff here?” I asked, “I noticed a couple lockers in the back room.”

“I have an apprentice. There’s not many bakers in Crystal Cove so I’m teaching Claire’s little sister. We got really friendly after the … drama with you.”

“I’m sorry about that.” A blush creeps up my cheeks: I thought I had escaped all of this.

She waves away the apology. “No need to apologise, you’ve been forgiven long ago. How’s the tea?”

“It’s good, thank you. Makes me feel like a real old British lady.”

She chuckles. “Absolutely my vibe.”

“So, … How long have you had this bakery?” I ask, curiosity finally getting the better of me. We’d already discussed my life at the café to death, but when we talked about hers, she never mentioned this place.

“Not long, just a couple years. After you went off to wherever you went to-.”

“New York. I went to New York.”

“-yeah, that place, I took an apprenticeship in the bakery in the next town over for a year. Followed by six years of culinary training- “

“Jeez!” I interrupt involuntarily. “Six _years_?”

“I know right! But yeah, six years, then a degree in business, which was four years, but luckily, I could do both at the same time, so it didn’t take as long as you’d have expected. For some it can take far longer.”

“What made you start baking in the first place? I don’t remember you being much of a baker…”

“Oh, that.” She stares down into her cup for a couple seconds before answering. “I don’t-.”

The timer on her phone goes off. Our chill time is up.

Velma grabs he mug, downs the remainder of her tea, and then goes to get the dough from the fridge. “Could you grab two rolling pins from the drawer?”

Automatically, and with the flourish of one who had done this a thousand times before, she lightly dusts the counter with flour. She turns on the oven, hands me one of the dough balls, and takes one of the rolling pins.

“Roll to about … 2 or 3 millimetres thick. Then use this, -“ she presses a star shaped cookie cutter into the palm of my hand – “to cut the cookies into shape, then put them onto that baking tray.”

This task doesn’t take long, I only needed to cut sixteen cookies, so Velma moves me onto making the filling while she finishes off her bit (hers are a bit more complicated: each cookie has a star shaped hole in it) and puts the cookies into the oven.

I had to whisk the butter, sugar, and some of the jam together (terrifying). Velma had to help by grabbing the electric whisk from me after I screamed and nearly dropped it into the mixture. Obviously, she teased me, and I _had_ to swipe her nose with a little bit of the filling. We do manage to get the rest of the filling into a churro syringe (something about being better for the environment and doing the same thing as piping bags) and onto the cookies, once they’d baked and cooled, of course.

Velma separates the cookies into a couple decorated paper bags with the “Piece of Cake” logo on them and hands them to me. “These are for you to give to your family. And maybe any friends you still have around here. I think they’ll appreciate this more than any store-bought gift.”

I hand one back to her. “Here, friend, have some homemade cookies.”

Her grin is priceless.

She escorts me to the door and opens it for me. We’re both startled by how dark it is outside.

“I can drive you back home if you want? It is quite far from here, right?” She glances at her watch. “Or you could just stay over? It’s really up to you.”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

We all glanced at each other and immediately knew what to do: scatter.

I saw Fred grab Daphne’s hand and pull her towards the main house. Scooby leapt into Shaggy’s arms and the pair started to run into the forest. Knowing that the forest is the worst possible route to safety, I grabbed the collar on Shaggy’s neck and turned them around to safety. The calling circle had been too kicked up by the panic to send his back by force through this route. We’re just going to have to negotiate, or uncover the real villain behind all of this, although I doubt there is one. So, safety it is.

I glanced at the ghost again, still pissed and moving towards us, and ran in the same direction as the others.

My mind whirred as I ran, trying to solve this issue we’ve created for ourselves. We can’t corner the guy ( _how_ would you even corner a ghost?) to negotiate, and if we did, he’d probably be too angry and lash out at us. So, what do we do?

For about twenty minutes, we just ran around the main house. There was one corridor we all got stuck on: I saw Daphne, separated from Fred, across the hall, then Shaggy running from one room into another with the ghost hot on his heels, soon followed by the ghost running from the same room with Shaggy on his heels. It was all increasingly bizarre, so I stood still in the middle and watched and waited. I wasn’t sure what for, however, until I saw it.

The ghost was starting to get tired, and he paused at each doorway to catch his breath: we were wearing the guy down. If we could make him absolutely exhausted to the point of submission, that is our shot to solve all of this.

I saw Daphne rounding the corner again and relay this information to her as briefly as I could. She smiled and gave me a thumbs up. “Leave it to me!” she called back. I could hear her calling out for the others to help not long after that.

Given that my stamina was even worse than the ghost’s, I decided to create a capture circle. I’d read about it in the divination book, but I had accidentally left it on the forest floor, so I had to do it from memory. I dragged an armchair from one of the rooms (I thought the ghost would appreciate the place to rest after all that working out), put a circle of fine to medium sand around it and left a small entrance for the ghost. It’s relatively simple so it didn’t take too long. All I had to do now was wait for them to shepherd the ghost here.

Meanwhile, I set up a couple obstacles for the ghost to wear him out even more.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Daphne backed the ghost into the armchair with Shaggy, Scooby, and Fred surrounding the ghost from the other sides. The ghost didn’t seem to even think twice before flopping down onto the chair.

“You punks…” he sighed, “Finally letting me sit, are you?”

He glances down at me completing the sand circle and laughed. “You guys really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“Just tell me why you’re haunting me.” Fred growled angrily.

The ghost leaned back into the chair with a smirk. “No.”

He kicked the sand and broke the circle. When I glanced back at the chair, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want the recipe for the Jammy Star Cookies, here is a link to it: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/jammy-star-cookies
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> Thank you for reading,  
> -MoonRenegade


	8. Chapter 8

_**Daphne, now:** _

I must say, Velma makes a wonderful host. For me, anyway, I can see why she might struggle if there were more people. She led me up some stairs, unlocked the door labelled “PRIVATE”, and let me in. Inside, it’s a wonderfully small apartment. From the hallway where I’m standing, I can see a tiny terrace, barely large enough to hold a glass patio table and two chairs, facing away from the shopfront for some privacy, overlooking the park. The loft space had been turned into a delightful “viewing area” reminiscent of childhood blanket forts, and plants and books spill from every conceivable surface. I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if this apartment was a carbon sink.

Velma clicks on the fairy lights, filling the entire space, as small as it is, with such a cosy and comfortable atmosphere that I never want to leave.

“Do you like it?” Velma’s voice is nervous, quiet. As if she’s never had someone over before?

“I love it!”

Her smile at my words is just… asddrtfegrydthuyjiukklohyj.

_Gather yourself together! You are a grown-*ss lady, use words,_ I say internally.

She looked pretty.

Velma fixes us both up mugs of grocery store mulled wine, as if we hadn’t had enough sugar and alcohol already, while her kitchen fill with the scent of macaroni and cheese. We cosy up on the viewing platform with our mugs while we wait.

I glance down at my mug. “Is there alcohol in this?”

Velma checks the label on the bottle. “A little. It’s 8%, lower than most, for mulled wine.”

“To getting toasted-!” I raise my mug into the air, - “and old friends!”

Velma laughs and clinks her mug against mine. “To old friends.”

There’s a faint click from the kitchen. We glance at each other, and she insists on getting it and on not needing help. Velma gets up and returns a few minutes later bearing two plates piled high with cheesy goodness and forks. Well, it wasn’t exactly _good_ for our bodies, but who cares.

“You were a good help in the kitchen today.” Velma says, eyes flitting up from her plate where she was picking at her food. “Far more helpful than Claire’s sister has been for the past month anyway.”

“What’s her name?” We’re both quite drunk at this point.

Velma laughs. “Y’know what, I don’t know!” She waves around her fork. “I think something like Emily?”

“What a great boss _you_ are!” I laugh.

“Oh, wait ‘till you hear about this.” Velma hates a huge bite out of her mac and cheese, chews it quickly, and launches into the anecdote. “You know how he bakery has staff only Wi-Fi, which is basically just my personal Wi-Fi network I gave Emily access to?”

“Yeah?” She’d given me the password for it earlier.

“Yeah, well, I caught her using the Wi-Fi to stream the entirety of Stranger Things when she should’ve been working! And I’m pretty certain she’s used the utility room in the back to hook-up with her boyfriend in because it’s started to smell weird recently.”

“Gross.” My face scrunches up. “Hooking up at work, just … urgh.”

“I know, right! And that’s not the-“

My phone starts to buzz in my pocket, and I realise I hadn’t checked it for nearly the entire day. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this call, do you mind if I…?”

“Not at all, go ahead.” Velma waves her hand around, picks up the little dish of kumquat, and starts slowly eating them as I pick up the call.

It’s Mum on the other line sounding incredibly frantic. “Daphne! Where are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone? Do you know how late it is?”

I glance at my watch. “It’s eleven o’clock.”

“So why aren’t you home? Do you know how worried you’ve made your father and I?”

“Sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

“Do you need to be picked up? Where are you?”

I cover my phone with my hand. “Is it alright if I spend the night here?”

“Wasn’t that the plan already?” she grins.

“I l-. Thank you.” I uncover the phone again. “No, Mum, I don’t need a lift, I’m an adult remember? I’m staying over at a friend’s house, so I’ll see you in the morning. Bye, Mum!”

“Daphn-!”

I end the call before she can say anything to protest. “Now, where were we?”

We continue our swapping of anecdotes until into the early hours of the morning, where we found ourselves far too drunk and tired to be able to safely make it down the ladder to Velma’s bedroom or the pull-out sofa in the living room. We ended up simply tidying the plates a little and just pushing them to the side so that we could both snuggle under the blanket to sleep.

Velma falls asleep before I do, her presence diminishing to simply a heat source and the occasional whisper of a sigh in her sleep. She looks so peaceful when she sleeps. Like all the weight has been pulled off her chest and left in the waking world for her to come back to when she returns.

It’s hard to imagine what she’s been through. I went through a fraction of what she went through with her, and I left this crummy town as soon as the reins loosened. She remained here, reminders of what happened attacking her from every single angle, I imagine.

I suppose dreams are an escape, as fleeting as they are. I miss the times when we used to just talk about everything, even just the dumbest dreams or whatever the hell Shaggy and Scooby had been up to that week. (One time they turned Fred’s pencil case into a fishbowl with Fred’s calculator as the fish. I think they tired to give the calculator CPR after it broke from all the water, which was literally just them punching the calculator into the desk, but that’s a story for another time). I wish I could tell her all this. We’re just not as close as we were.

I take my phone and start scrolling through the emails. Might as well get some work done while I’m still awake. I glance at Velma’s face, just to make sure the light hasn’t woken her up.

It hasn’t.

I wonder what she’s dreaming about now.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

“Well, that was-.” Fred started, after an eternity of silence.

“Fred! You didn’t tell me you had guests over.” A man in a slick navy suit and red tie approached us with open arms. He had jet black hair sprinkled with grey hairs and a pair of thick green-tinted glasses perched atop his nose. He carried about himself an air of someone who knew he would be overseeing the situation already and every conceivable conclusion ended in him obtaining something. Why the mayor of Crystal Cove was walking around Fred’s house evaded me until the following conversation played out.

The man dropped his hands onto Fred’s shoulders and stared intently into Fred’s eyes. “And there’s no chance you’ve forgotten about tonight’s gala. Isn’t that right, Fred?”

“Ah…”

“And it’s quite an important night tonight as well: we have a certain special guest who may bring great _positive_ change to Crystal Cove. My dearest and only son would never forget about such an important day, now would he?”

Fred squirmed uncomfortably and said nothing. It was perfectly clear that the mayor’s “dearest son” had, in fact, forgotten.

With a smirk, the man whirled around and started walking off in the same direction from which he had appeared. “Martha left your tux hanging in your closet so be ready by nine.”

He quickly popped his head around the door again to say, “Your friends are welcome of course, as long as you all clear this up by then.”

And with the sound of short, clipped fading into the distance, he was gone.

“When were you guys going to tell me that his Dad-.” I gesture to Fred, - “is the mayor of Crystal Cove?”

They stared at me blankly. “You didn’t know?” Daphne asked.

“No?”

“Well, … you do now! -” she turned away from ma and back to Fred, - “Now, about this gala.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, I forgot.” Fred self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m really sorr-.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not us you need to apologise to-.” Daphne waved away his apology then clapped her hands together, - “We have a deadline now, so we better get moving because I don’t want to be late to the gala, and we need at least an hour to get ready, so we all need to hustle up.”

“’We’?” Daphne ignored my question and instead followed it up with her own.

“Can you make another summoning circle for Imes and Phoebe?”

“Here?” She nodded. “I can try.”

Daphne didn’t explain her plan to us and instead simply instructed us on what our individual roles were. I would be the one in charge of summoning and banishing, Shaggy would be watching for any signs of danger with Scooby, Fred was going to be the “leader” but let Daphne take over when she gave him the signal. I could tell Daphne wasn’t telling us something about her plan on purpose, but she seemed to know what she was doing so I let it go.

She also seemed strangely fascinated in the lives of nature spirits and I told her as much as I could remember from my research while I set up the summoning circle. I tweaked the circle a little after what I learned from the last three so that we would be on the outside and the spirit trapped inside the circle as it would be safer for both us and Fred’s dad. Well, the mayor. I decided that the ornate oak closet in the corridor would be the cabinet to an oak tree we would get in here, and so with a little help from the rest of the gang, pulled it away from the wall and into the middle of the hallway so I can make a full circle of sand around it.

Imes seemed to be napping when they were summoned, but their snores were clearly fake, and a snow globe smacking them in the face seemed to rouse them rather swiftly (Fred got quite restless and impatient).

“What do you meddling kids want? I thought I told you to leave me alone.” he growled at us.

“We really need your help. We’re completely over our heads and we could use some help from a mighty and knowledgeable oak like yourself?” Fred pleaded.

“Why should I help a pair of snotty nosed kids when I could be chatting up a nymph, hm? Apparently one of the Hamadryades is having another party…” they started to fade away at those words, presumably to go chasing after the aforementioned nymph.

“Wait! -” Daphne stepped forward so she’s almost in the circle, - “I can make it worth your time.”

Imes’s face returned to the cabinet. “You can, can you?”

“Yes.” Daphne unclipped the necklace around her neck and let it dangle from her hand. It was a relatively simple gold chain with a little pendant jewel hanging from it. “You like gold and diamonds, right?”

“But-!” Fred started to interject. Daphne shot him a look, and he fell silent.

“Would this be worth your time?” Daphne asked Imes, but his answer was already clear on his face.

“Bring it here.” Imes’s eyes didn’t part from the necklace.

Without hesitation, Daphne motioned to step forwards. I instinctively shot my arm out to stop her. She merely shook her head and whispered, “I have to.” before brushing aside my arm and stepping into the circle.

Imes stretched out a hand from the cabinet which Daphne dropped the necklace into. They inspected the necklace for a few moments before remarking that it was in fact genuine, something they seemed surprised at. The hand retracted into the cabinet with the necklace and the face finally glanced up to look at us. Thankfully, Daphne had stepped out if the circle at this point and was out of immediate danger, and I could let out the breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding.

“So, what do you want to know?” Imes asked of us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love Velma's room, it's so cuteee.
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	9. Chapter 9

_**Daphne, now:** _

When I wake up, sunlight is streaming through the window, birds are singing outside, and my phone is dead. I didn’t bring my charger with me and I forgot to ask to borrow Velma’s before she fell asleep. Velma must’ve woken up before me as I was alone in the viewing area and the plates and mugs from last night had disappeared. My head pounding, I clambered down the ladder to find her doing the dishes in the kitchen.

“’Morning.” I mumble in her direction. I feel incredibly groggy and gross, as I tend to do before a coffee and a shower, and a lack of clean clothes. I just want to get home.

“Oh, you’re awake!” she glances up, “There’s some towels in the bathroom if you want to take a shower.”

“Thank you?” I look around, unsure of where to go.

“It’s the one down the hall. Second door.” she points to the door she was talking about, soapy water dripping from the yellow rubber glove.

The bathroom matches the rest of the apartment. It was more green jungle than a classic white tiled bathroom you might find in a showroom. There was even a floor shelf solely for plants and a couple plant books. On each side of the mirror over the sink hangs two potted succulents in a rope harness-thing and everything is either white or grey marble. Velma essentially lived in the apartment where all the stuff my parents were hiding had gathered for shelter, plus all the plants in a three-mile radius.

My mind refuses to stop whirring as I take a shower. What work emails am I behind on? How could I be so stupid as to forget to charge essentially another appendage? I need to get home, I need to check my inbox, I need to check my notifications, I need to-.

I need to breathe. What did the lady say? Six seconds, hold it for seven, release for eight? I sigh and slowly sink to the ground and just … cry. There’s something about being here, Velma being so close, and the hangover that isn’t really a hangover that makes me feel like it’s finally okay to cry and _let go_.

Not in a “Frozen” way.

When I got out of the shower feeling cathartic and quite a bit better, I notice something I hadn’t seen before: a small pile of folded clothes, a packet of paracetamol, and a note.

_Thought you’d appreciate a fresh set of clothes. :)_

_-V_

She’s let me borrow one of her green hoodies and jeans as well as a t-shirt for a show we both used to watch as kids. A smile stretches across my face before I can stop it. This had faded from my memory, but Velma had remembered. The theme song, a distant and faint memory only a moment ago, was starting to come back as I pulled the shirt over my head and used one of the glasses on the shelf to down two paracetamols.

I ended up humming it quietly as I left the bathroom, hair dry, face clear of make-up. Velma didn’t have much, and I know I would feel guilty for using it especially since she’d already given me so much today and last night. The oppressive heated scent of cinnamon smacks me in the face when I approach the kitchen.

“The frick…?”

I see Velma testing something she was heating in a pan and add a pinch of something before pouring the mixture into two mugs, her back towards me. She sprinkled a handful of marshmallows with the same flourish I had seen last night as the news played in the living room. It looked so perfect, and I didn’t want to intrude, but the floor creaking underneath me gave me away.

She spins around, sees me standing there, then hand me one of the mugs. “I know you’re more of a coffee person, but sugar helps with hangovers.”

It’s hot chocolate. With Nutella and cinnamon and maybe a pinch of salt? “Thank you, this is… it tastes great.”

We awkwardly hover around each other, unsure of what to do next. The news blasts our ears with the sudden sound of gunshots, and both Velma and I are taken aback. Velma flops down onto the sofa to watch the news, and I lean against the back of the sofa to watch with her. Something about a mass shooting, climate change, a war in the middle east, the usual rigmarole. It switches to the local news as we both silently sip from our mugs. The Christmas events being organised, the possibility of snow, the church faire.

“We’re really going to struggle with that.” Velma says before swallowing the last of her hot chocolate and getting up off the sofa to clean the mug. She reaches out for my mug, so I hand it to her with a smile.

“Thanks.”

“Did you sleep well, by the way?” she asks from the kitchen.

“Yeah, … Do you want some help with that?”

“No, I think I can clean two mugs without help,” Velma laughs, “Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Actually, I meant the church faire. You said you guys would struggle.” Something was compelling me to help, or at least be around her as much as possible. Not in a creepy way, obviously.

“Oh. Well, now that you mention it, we could do with some help. You’re more helpful than Emilia is anyway.” She smiles at me. My chest warms at the compliment, unusually.

“You remembered her name?”

“No, I just checked her locker.” We both laugh. “But, yeah, your help would be appreciated. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do, you’ve helped me more than you know.” Frick, frick, no, this wasn’t where the conversation was supposed to go, why did I say that-

“I could say the same about you.” a small sad smile appears on her face before being replaced by a fake happy one, “How about some breakfast?”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

With Imes’s help, we set up a trap in the ballroom (they figured the larger the space the better). Turns out chalk is far better than sand, and it lasts longer, so with Imes barking orders at me from the closet we’d dragged into the ballroom, I drew out a series of intertwining triangles and circles. Imes also handed Fred a chalice of foul-smelling liquid and sent him and Scooby outside with a set of strict instructions and a walkie talkie. (apparently Fred is a huge mystery nut and has a bunch of equipment in his room. Or annex, I suppose)

“Right, kiddos, the guys outside already know what they need to do, we just need to make sure they can do it. Here’s the plan.” The closet opens and a scroll of parchment paper rolled out.

It was a step by step guide tailored to us through little blue notes in the margin, presumably done by Imes. Glancing through the guide, I noticed a step I had to do now. I picked up the Divination book and flicked to page 24,232 (it’s a big book) only to find that there isn’t one. Or rather, the two pages were stuck to each other, thus hiding the notation I had needed for “Banishment for Malignant Spirits”.

I glanced up at Imes, a gasp on my lips, to see their smug face smirking at me. They said nothing, and so I kept reading through the instructions.

“I gave the guys a banishment potion that they need to pour onto Thomas’ remains, but we don’t know where it is yet, he always was a secretive bastard, so we’re going to wake Phoebe and you,-” Imes pointed at Shaggy, - “are going to sleep for her. She knows where he is, so she can guide us.”

Shaggy gave Imes a thumbs up, and with a sincere voice told them that, “Sleeping is the second-best thing I can do, after snacking of course.”

“Now, you, -” Imes pointed at Daphne this time, - “are going to bait Thomas into here, got it? Get him into the circle in any way you can. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure he’s in the circle so that that one, -” they pointed at me, - “can banish him to the deepest pit of hell, where he belongs.”

“That’s a bit harsh…” Daphne remarked. “He’s only been a little annoying to Fred-”

“It’s not about that brat, -“

An audible annoyed “Hey!” came from the walkie talkie.

“- that dead bastard ate my chocolate pudding. I never get sacrifices anymore, and them he goes and steals one of them? He deserves worse than hell could ever give him.” Imes snapped and growled.

Daphne’s eyebrows raised up, unimpressed, before she flashed a look of ‘are we ready?’ at both Shaggy and I, we both nodded at her. She nodded at Imes, and at once Phoebe rose up from the centre of the circle. Her eyes snapped open as Shaggy collapsed onto the ground. I dragged him onto a chaise lounge so that he would be more comfortable, then returned to my spot on the floor to wait for Thomas Adams to get here, double checking that I had everything I needed.

I could hear Phoebe talking quickly and quietly to Fred on the other end of the walkie talkie, her voice was quite pretty. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but she looked quite young. Maybe a couple years older than us, but barely older than nineteen, at most. To die so young… I couldn’t imagine it. Yet here she was, having done exactly that.

My thoughts were interrupted by Daphne bursting through the door, waving a book and a lighter over her head, followed by the outraged looking ghost of Thomas Adams. I stood up; Divination book gripped tightly in my hands.

“Oh, you want your precious book to burn?” she taunted, “I can do that perfectly well!”

She let a little corner catch fire before throwing it directly into the centre of the circle. Adams immediately flew after it, hopelessly trying to stamp out the flame but his foot continued to just pass through it. He wailed out.

“Now!” Daphne yelled at me.

“If the spirits threaten me in this place,” I started chanting.

I could hear Imes telling the guys to hurry the f*ck up behind me. _We might not make it after all, despite everything._

“Fight Water by Water, -” I flicked holy water (Imes had found some) at Adams, he flinched, cringed away from me and his wails got even louder, - “and Fire by Fire, -”

Daphne chucked the lighter, still lit, at Adams’ head. It passed through, but still dropped neatly into one of the circles. He hissed at her, annoyed but otherwise so far unaffected. He tried to step towards her, but he encountered an invisible barrier.

“Banish their souls into nothingness and remove their powers to the last trace.” Adam’s wails made my ears ring and I could barely hear what I was saying over the sound. I strengthened my resolve and continued with the invocation.

“Let these evil beings flee, - “

I did manage to hear Phoebe scream “NOW!” before the howls got even louder in a crescendo. Fred and Scooby must’ve poured the mixture onto Adam’s remains as the ghost before me screeched even louder as his skin appeared to melt of his ethereal body.

“Through time and space!”

After that, my vision went black, and I could feel myself falling to the ground and letting the book slip with a thud onto the floor. I was so, so tired, and my ears continued to ring.

And then, silence.

There’s a quick breath of air, and I felt a pair of arms wrap around me as my vision slowly returned to me. I collapsed into Daphne and hugged her back.

“We did it.” she said softly into my ear. “We did good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've said this before, but Velma's hecking apartment, it's just perfect, y'know?
> 
> Also Imes is kinda like a coach I know. They weren't meant to be written like that, but it ended up happening, and I don't hate it.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	10. Chapter 10

_**Daphne, now:** _

As Velma went to fetch some pastries for breakfast from downstairs (as in the bakery), I plugged in the charger Velma let me borrow and waited for my phone to start. It seems to take _forever_. The illustration of the red battery on the screen only changes as Velma reappears bearing a steaming plate of cinnamon rolls and apple twist breads.

“Do you wanna eat on the terrace or…?” she asks.

“Terrace sounds good.” I smile a her, and I put my phone down. Maybe it’s okay to take a break sometimes.

She goes outside and places the plate on the table then returns tells me it’s quite cold outside. She roots through a dresser in the hallway and pulls out two scarves and a hat. She wraps one of the scarves around her neck, and the other around me. With a giggle, she jams the hat down onto my head past me eyes.

“Oi!” I cry out, laughing.

I jokingly stumble around, grasping at the air, until I catch hold of Velma in a hug. We both freeze, unaware of what to do now, the laughter dies in our throats. Velma folds up the excess fabric over my eyes. Her face is so close to my own, I could kiss her without even moving my neck.

I clear my throat instead, and we break apart, the moment vanishing before it had even fully developed. A small nugget of regret seeded itself in my chest, and no amount of swallowing rid me of it.

“Shall we eat?” Velma asks.

I nod in reply. She opens the door for me and sits down on the chair to the right. A blast of cold, cinnamon scented air smacked me right in the face.

“What is it with the cinnamon today? I barely had any all year, and today…” I say out loud.

“Cinnamon is Christmas-y! It’s also very good at warming you.”

“But it sucks all the moisture out of your mouth.” I say, taking a bite of a cinnamon roll. “These are good, though. Is this a salted caramel glaze?”

“Yep! Is it too much? I was trying a new recipe.” She leans forward a little, anticipating my answer.

“I love it!” We laugh and double down on the baked treats, chatting and laughing as we do so. Somehow, despite having spent most of the night before talking about everything, we still had things to talk about.

“Oh yeah, what happened to the guys from the old gang? How are Shaggy and Fred and Scooby? Did Fred ever become a mystery writer?”

“Well, Fred did actually become a mystery writer, but only because he published our ‘adventures’ under the name Joe Ruby with a college friend, Ken Spears. Did you not get the 25% royalties package?”

“Wait, was it from Deploya Media?” I ask, years of unanswered questions dawning on me. “I always thought that was just from work.”

Velma laughs, “Fair enough, I guess.”

“What about Shaggy and Scooby?” I take another bite from the cinnamon apple twist bread and chew thoughtfully.

“Ah… Scooby, …-” Velma sighs, - “he got ran over a couple years after we graduated. Shaggy was heartbroken.”

“Oh…”

“He was an old dog, I suppose. He was nearly eleven years old, if I remember correctly. It’s a shame, but, …-” Velma chuckles slightly, - “Scooby’s death ended up bring Fred and Shaggy closer together. They’ve got a daughter now, I think.”

“Oh! What’s she called?”

“She’s called Alexi, but her middle name is Scoobert.” Velma starts scrolling through her images on her phone. She hands me her phone. On it, there’s a photo of Fred and Shaggy, the years passed etched in their faces, hugging a small six-year-old. She grins at the camera, one of her front teeth missing, clutching at a little blue stuffed rabbit toy.

“Hey, is that…?” I say, pointing at the rabbit.

“Yeah, that’s the one. I hope you don’t mind? I’m sorry, I couldn’t bear looking at it every morning-.” Velma seems almost panicked, and I want nothing more than hug her to make her feel better.

“It’s okay, I understand. Plus, I’m sure Alexi appreciates it more, by the looks of it."

“Yeah,” Velma laughs, “It’s her favourite of all of her stuffed toys. It’s her birthday soon.”

We sit in silence for a moment, pondering over the same empty space we’re avoiding. I stare off, out to the landscape of Crystal Cove.

“Do you want to go to her birthday party with me?” Velma asks.

“Hm?” She catches me by surprise, so what else was I supposed to do?

“Fred and Shaggy live in the next town over, and for Alexi’s birthday they’re having two parties: one for their friends, one for Alexi’s friends.”

“That sounds fun. Are you sure I won’t be impeding, though?”

“Nah, I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re an old friend, and if the godparent is inviting you, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll ask the guys if it makes you feel better, though.”

“Thank you.” I smile at her, grateful to be included.

“I’ll send you the details, so add it to your calendar!”

The plate between us was empty now, so Velma offered me a lift, but I politely declined. I need to burn off some of the calories and stretch my legs a bit, I tell her. Mostly I just don’t want to come off as rude while I check my emails. We awkwardly hug in the doorway as we say as our goodbyes, and so I head off.

My mind whirled as I walked, the occasional thought of kissing-. I shook my head and checked my phone. Another couple missed calls from my mum, and a handful of spam emails. One from my co-worker, though, wishing me a “happy holidays!”, and asking if I’d be able to cover for them so they could have another week off. I agree easily enough: it’s not like I have anything else to do.

Other than Alexi’s birthday, I suppose. And the church faire I’d agreed to. But then again, they only need me to come into the office after Christmas, so it’ll be fine. Yeah.

I should probably get something for her birthday… A rather convenient store appears as I think this, so I head in to look around. What do six- or seven-year olds like nowadays?

But if she liked the blue rabbit… I make up my mind, pick a fabric, buy it, and head home to get started on work.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

The door swung open and a slow clapping began to echo from the tall walls of the grand hall. I looked up with surprise as Daphne snapped away from me. She stood up, dusted herself off, then offered me a hand to stand up. I shook my head and scrambled up by myself.

“Well done, dear children, well done indeed!” Mayor Jones entered the room followed by another person just behind him. “This is Deputy Bucky, by the way, he’s helping me out today, isn’t that right Bucky?”

The short, overweight man gave a weak smile and thumbs up. He was middle aged, and his brown hair was starting to thin on top. Despite only being a deputy, he wore the sheriff’s uniform and star, but it read “Deputy” upon closer inspection, and his huge glasses made each blink feel practically audible.

“We enjoyed watching that immensely. You all performed _brilliantly_.” the Mayor informed us, gesturing to himself and the Deputy. Deputy Bucky tipped his hat towards us but made no other remark.

“We what?” A dripping wet and sopping Fred and Scooby appeared in the doorframe. Fred’s shoes squeaked along the polished wooden floor, “What do you mean we performed-?”

“Now, children I would recommend you go get ready now. The gala is starting soon.” Fred’s dad looked him up and down, and in a softer tone, said, “Maybe take a shower while you’re at it.”

Shaggy snored loudly from the chaise lounge he was lying down on, briefly waking himself up, before drifting back to sleep again.

“And wake up your friend.” Mayor Jones turned around and started to walk back out of the grand hall with short clipped footsteps.

“But what about-?” Fred started.

“I have already prepared a variety of outfits for your friends, and for Daphne the sewing room is fully stocked. See you in an hour, children.”

“Thanks, sir!” Daphne called after him as he left, muttering something about ‘remind me to get the cleaners to mop up those puddles’.

Daphne grinned mischievously at me, grabbed my hand, yelled a quick “bye” to the guys, then dragged me out of the room. She pulled me through various doorways, along winding corridors, and around hairpin turns at a break-neck pace, all while telling to hurry up the entire time.

“Where are we going?” I asked her for the umpteenth time when she stopped us outside a dark room.

“The best place in the world.” Daphne beamed.

With a grandiose flick of the wrist, she snapped on the light, revealing a colourful, fabric-filled room. Along one wall of the room, there was a mounted bookshelf cabinet _thing_ , filled to the absolute brim with every kind of fabric imaginable. Organza, tulle, felt, wool, polyester, satin, silk, all of it. Along another, next to a windowsill seat, an array of spools of thread ranging the entire rainbow lined the wooden poles they were on. A Wooton desk made of mahogany was pushed into a corner, and piles of paper and sketches and pens overflowed from its many storage spaces. Central to it all, there was an antique tailor’s desk, then clear of any clutter, although not for very long.

“Isn’t it brilliant? When Fred found out about me wanting to be a big fashion designer in New York, -or London, or maybe even Paris! – he had this sewing room built for me. It would’ve been more practical to have it my house, but he insisted-.”

Daphne went on talking as she worked. She would occasionally ask my opinion about a fabric colour or seam or waistline, before having to explain to me the difference between phlox purple and electric purple when I didn’t understand what she was asking of me.

“Do you think an empire silhouette would be better than a late-19th century silhouette? Or is the empire silhouette too casual?”

“I have no idea what the hell you are talking about.” I replied, exasperated. This was nearly the eighth hundredth thousand time she’d asked something like this, “Empire I guess?”

“I thought you liked history?” she said, her tone questioning.

“Yeah, but I read the stories, I generally don’t look too closely at the dresses or the pictures at all.”

She gestured for me to get up. “C’mon, help me drape this fabric. The best way to learn is to do. Could you pin it right here?”

In the end, she ended up making not just one, but two dresses. One for me, one for her.

I didn’t really think I would wear a dress, but Daphne … She was convincing, I guess.

She ended up settling on a 1970s style liberty purple cotton wrap dress and elbow length pale purple gloves for herself, and for me, a red silk bodice garnished with orange flowers and a simple red floor-length pleated skirt. We both tried them on in the en suite bathroom. She did both of our make-up and hair, and I daren’t look in the mirror. The little peep I got didn’t look like me, and I didn’t want to risk seeing what she had done, just in case my reaction hurt her feelings, especially since she had gone to such lengths.

“Do you like it?” she asked, not looking at me, fixing a little flyaway in the mirror.

“I love it.” I answered without taking my eyes off her reflection, “I’m sure you’ll be a great fashion designer one day.”

“I hope so! I don’t want to end in a stressful and low paying job like a journalist or something.” She attached a small bejewelled hair slide to my hair before pulling back. “Perfect!”

I gave her my best smile. “Perfect!” I parroted.

“Should we go see if Fred’s managed to wake Shaggy up yet?” Daphne flashed a smile back. She started to leave before I even replied. “C’mon!”

I glanced down at my pitiful pile of raggedy clothes in the corner. My oversized orange jumper, the one that reminded me so much of him, lay on top of them.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered to it as I closed the door, enclosing it in the darkness.

Daphne offered me her elbow with a grin. “Shall we?”

I linked my arm with hers with a laugh. “Yes, we shall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Easter is coming up, I may have hidden a few extra Easter eggs in this chapter than I normally would...
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	11. Chapter 11

_**Daphne, now:** _

The ladder to the attic creaks as it unfolds down and a cascade of dust tumbles down onto my head.

Gross.

The loft space was relatively large space wise, but I still have to stoop to avoid banging my head against the low ceiling. I could tell that someone had been here recently: there were a few footsteps in the dust trailing around. Boxes and trunks and bags and crates are stacked haphazardly on top of one another, books and knickknacks and antiques spill out onto the floor, dust coating every conceivable surface. Various financial endeavours that my father pioneered lay gathering even more dust.

I _knew_ my parents didn’t throw anything away.

There’s a few carboard boxes, not too far in, labelled simply as “Daphne” that all look like they’re on the verge of falling apart thanks to how full of things they are. I remember packing a few of these when I moved out, but others are new to me. Presumably, _hopefully_ , one of them will contain my old sewing kit.

When had I gotten back from Velma’s, I had gotten a lecture from my parents about letting them know where I am, as if I’m still a teenager and not an adult who can take care of myself. Old habits die hard, I guess. Mum went to yoga about an hour ago and Dad is simply nowhere to be found.

I hadn’t been able to find my sewing kit in my room, so the attic seemed like the next logical location as my parents don’t keep my things anywhere else.

None of the boxes are taped shut, so I simply drag one to the centre of the attic, where a beam of light created a spotlight on the floor and started to root through it.

This one clearly held little mementos from my early to mid childhood: scrapbooks, works of “art”, tiny shoes and clothing, the usual. There are stuffed toys and plastic dolls that spark so many bright and wonderful memories, tucked far into the corner of my mind. Right at the bottom, there’s a crinkled old photo that I know once hung on Fred’s wall. It’s from when we were about eight or so at one of many of our parents’ meetings. It was from before Fred’s Dad became Mayor, however, so it must have been solely connections building.

I could see that the sewing kit I’d gotten for my fifteenth birthday (my parents knew even then that Fred and I weren’t going to be friends forever, and having access to a sewing room in his house was a limited time offer) isn’t in here, so I put everything back and pull out another box.

This one is more related to my teenage years. Traces of Velma are in this box, so it must have been after she transferred in our sophomore year. A hoodie she had lent me after it rained and I had no spare change of clothes (why did I keep that?), various notebooks choking with doodles, a crumpled note from one of our classes. (“ _Mr C. looks like a skunk. … I know right! No one ever believes me when I say it. It’s his glasses, mostly. … Where the heck is Shaggy, by the way?... He’s ‘overslept’ again. … Oh._ ”)

It’s not in here either.

The next box is all baby things: bibs, bottles, soft toys, that sort of thing. There’s another scrapbook in here, so I start idly flipping through it. Baby me the first day they brought me home, the first time I smiled (not really, it was probably the two hundredth, according to my parents, as I never smiled for the camera back then), baby me, three months old it says on the back, at the park clutching a flower with all the force in my little baby muscles. Quite adorable, I suppose.

The fourth box, fortunately, _does_ have my sewing kit in it. The iconic purple plastic box is buried under old sewing patterns, half a pillow (ostensibly scavenged to use for stuffing), and leftover scraps of colourful fabric. I grab an armful to take downstairs with me and start to tidy everything away.

A small photo flutters down when I stand up. (what is it with all these photos?)

It must be from Scooby’s brief photography phase, judging by the candidness of the photo (I highly doubt anyone else would have taken this), and from one of the few times we all went to the nature reserve together. Shaggy, his usual goofy self is doing the peace sign for the camera, is in the foreground while Fred, a little further back, is a blurry mess of a person who only just realised they were being photographed and barely managed turned around in time. In the background, I can see Velma and myself, unaware of the camera.

We are both under a tree, a picnic set up below us. I remember this day. She has her arms around my neck, and it looks like we were just about to kiss.

And Maddy. Young, sweet Maddy, playing in the stream nearby, pockets full of shiny rocks she liked and was going add to her collection of painted rocks on her windowsill.

A small, sad smile stretches across my face. I hug the photo briefly before putting the photo on top of my armful of stuff to take downstairs, gather everything up, then seal up the attic once more.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

We’d recently gotten into the habit of getting Fred to give us all a ride to the high street to get lunch in his “free-candy” van, so Shaggy, Scooby, and I were waiting for Daphne and Fred on the green bit outside the music classrooms as it was a relatively nice day for early spring.

“Want some?” Shaggy offered me his blunt. I politely refused, “Just Say No” and my Mum’s voice ran through my head, he shrugged and passed the blunt to Scooby instead.

I wonder what’s going on in Shaggy’s head. Were we looking the same cloud filled skies? Does that cloud that looked like an elephant to me, look like a squirrel to him? Actually, I don’t really know much about Shaggy at all.

“Hey, Shaggy, we don’t really know each other very well, do we?” I turned to him and asked.

“Y’know, I’ve got two younger siblings: Benji and Sugie. They’re twins.” Shaggy seemed to have ignored my question, but this seems like a tangent I could follow, so I just went along with it.

“Oh! How old are they?” I cheerfully asked, trying to incite a conversation.

“Ten.”

He seems to have nothing to add, unfortunately, so I let my mind wander as I continued to stare at the clouds passing idly by.

_“What would you think about me starting fostering?”_

_Last night, Mum and I were eating dinner, pasta, while watching TV, when she asked this out of nowhere. “Hm?”_

_She shifts on the sofa so she’s facing me. “I was thinking, we’ve got a spare room, and there’s 468,000 children in the foster care system. It couldn’t hurt…?” she tailed off, looking at me for an answer._

_I had put down my fork and thought for a moment. This wasn’t the first time Mum had brought this up, but previously it had been more subtle. Just little facts here and there (“Did you know that the number of children in the foster care system is higher than ever before?”, “23% of children entering the foster care system are under the age of one!” etc), so I had simply pushed it aside and ignored it._

_Nothing as explicit as this._

_“Em…”_

_“I’m not trying to replace you,” she had rushed to assure me, “I just thought maybe we could help someone-”_

_“Okay.” I had smiled at her._

_She had hugged me; her face filled with delight. “Thank you!”_

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Shaggy asking, “What are you, like, thinking about?”

“Not much.” I replied with a shrug, “What about you?”

“I’m hungry. And, like, _so_ toasted.” I hadn’t realised how much of a stoner Shaggy was, or that dogs could smoke weed, but I guess the signs had always been there. Y’know the little ones: the weird floral smell, the huge appetite, being really tired all the time.

“Oh…”

Off in the distance, I could hear a piercing whistle screeching through the air. Shaggy and Scooby seemed too high to notice as I stood up to look around for the source. Nothing seemed to be going on and everything was still, except for a shadowy figure disappearing into the line of trees hiding the Special Ed classrooms from view.

The whistle faded out of earshot as the strange figure did.

The door from the music classroom opened behind me, and Daphne and Fred, talking and laughing together, stepped through it.

“Everything alright, V?” Daphne asked, casually putting her arm around my shoulders. “Whatcha looking at?”

I squinted one last time at the line of trees, already knowing there’s nothing left to look at. I smiled at Daphne and shrugged, “Nothing much.”

It was probably a gardener or a guard or a teacher chasing a truanting student, so I pushed it aside. It’s probably wasn’t anything important, after all.

“So, where should we go to eat today?” Fred asked as he started to walk towards his van. “C’mon you guys, you coming with, or what?”

Shaggy and Scooby made little effort to get up. I rooted through my backpack, pulled out two dog treats I had left over from dog sitting. The pair immediately perked up, so I tossed them both at Scooby. Surprisingly, _both_ Scooby and Shaggy leapt for them and caught one each in their mouths. They munched in unison then started marching cheerfully to Fred’s van.

For a moment, Fred, Daphne, and I were startled beyond words, and simply stared, stuck in place, in shock at the van where Shaggy and Scooby had disappeared into.

“What the f-?” Fred managed, “Wha-…?”

After which, as if by magic, we burst into rib-splitting, tear-inducing laughter.

“How did you know-“ Daphne managed to say between spurts of hilarity, - “that Shaggy would do that?”

“I didn’t!” I called back, tears of laughter running down my cheeks.

Gradually, we all, with some difficulty, regained our composure and made our way to the van.

“Lunch!” Shaggy and Scooby yelled together as Fred eased out of the school’s carpark.

“Lunch!” the rest of us chorused, laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so late, over a month late in fact.
> 
> Unfortunately, this quarantine hasn't been exactly great on my mental wellbeing, and I didn't want to give you guys subpar writing if I could avoid it.
> 
> The following chapters may also be late, but hopefully not as late. (sorry in advance if they are)  
> Thank you for reading! :)   
> -Moon


	12. Chapter 12

_**Daphne, now:** _

For tonight, my parents had planned a party to “celebrate my return home”, although Dad assured me that Mum annually throws a Christmas party, whether or not I’m home to celebrate with them. I hadn’t exactly realised how many people they had invited until I came downstairs and was barely able to get to the kitchen to get a drink because the hallway was so crowded with people. They must’ve invited everyone in town, and the next few towns over, judging by the sheer mass of people.

I smiled and politely said hello to anyone who seemed to recognise me, cringing on the inside. _I had worked so hard to escape you all_ , I thought to myself behind my plastered-on grin.

Two girls I recognised from high school, Karen Marks and Mariya Ryder, managed to corner me in a doorway, and Karen started to interrogate me on New York life in the way only people who have never left their small hometown ever could.

Karen and Mariya had been my “friends” in senior year, although if I’m to be perfectly honest we only talked once or twice even though we were all part of the same “popular” group, and they had hardly changed since then. Karen is still impossibly thin, a mop of rather artificial blonde hair still sat atop her head, and Mariya seems not to have aged, or grown any taller, since I last saw her nearly three decades ago.

“Do you have a boyfriend back in New York? Or maybe a _husband_?” Karen asks with a smirk. “The clock _is_ ticking…” She taps her wrist as she says this, eyebrows raised.

“Hm, we’re not exactly young anymore, huh…” Mariya adds.

I sip the drink in my hand before I answer, “No, I don’t really have the time. Y’know work…”

Mariya nods sympathetically, but Karen seems ready to argue with me. “I completely understand, I thought that too, but if you get married you won’t need to work anymore, right? Your husband can support the both of you, that’s what _my_ husband does anyway.”

She is _such_ a f*cking Karen.

“I don’t really want to depend on anyone that much: it re-enforces the belief that men are the bread-winners when in reality both partners can be the source of financial income, plus it seems kind of leech-y…” I watch as Karen’s smug look starts to fall, and so immediately backpedal, “Not that there’s anything wrong with depending on people, it takes courage, I suppose, to be vulnerable and trust so completely.”

Karen’s smug smile returned. “Exactly. Anyway, if you don’t have a husband, we can find you someone here? I’m sure _someone_ will want… -“ she glanced me up and down, her smile slipping for a second, - “…you.”

I nod politely but don’t agree, trying to keep my smile turning into a snarl, _how dare she_ , and attempt to escape the conversation.

As I’m slowly backing out, hoping to simply slip away into the crowd, I accidentally crash into someone behind me. I hear a splash, followed by a scream, and silence.

When I turn around to apologise, I’m greeted by an unfamiliar snarling face looming a head or so above me. Most of the additional height, however, is added by the six-inch heels now soaked into white wine. When she kicks off the heels in order to clean them, she’s barely taller than me. She mumbles something about her best shoes being ruined and wanting to make a good first impression.

“I am so sorry, -“ I hover around her, unsure of what to do now, - “can I do anything to help?”

“Who the hell do you think you _are_?” she snaps at me, “Do you even know who I am?”

I lean back in shock, and one of her friends tries to warn her to stop there, but she brushes her aside with barely any acknowledgement. She arches one of her eyebrows, waiting for an answer. I straighten up and try to gather myself together. I know at least a few of the people around me still remember “Danger prone Daphne”, so I might as well, I’ve got nothing to lose.

“No, I don’t know. Care to inform me?” I smile as she scoffs in mock surprise, fury clearly rising in her face.

With absolute perfect timing, Dad appears with a Martini in his hand, seeming confused, “Why is everyone so quiet? It’s a Christmas party, people, have fun!” he reminds everyone.

As the woman turns to disappear back into the crowd, Dad takes us both by the arm and drags us both into one of the reading rooms, which was miraculously empty of other people. I suppose most of the people at this party are more interested in the free alcohol than books. He double checks the room is empty and closes the door behind him, after instructing us both to sit down in the two reading chairs. He’s towering over us both as if he’s a headteacher having to lecture two misbehaving students.

“Now, would anyone like to explain what you two were doing to cause such a scene in the middle of your mother’s-” he looks pointedly at me,- “party, hm?”

“Sorry, Dad, it was kind of a misunderstanding, I accidentally knocked over her drink and was apologising.” I turn to the woman, “I’m sorry for knocking over your drink, I’ll pay to get your shoes cleaned.”

“There, happy?” I add, turning back towards Dad.

He tilts his head towards the woman, who is staring at me, open mouthed and looking aghast.

“What?” I ask her, “Do I have something on my face?”

“Daphne, this is Christy Henderson, she runs the new bakery I was telling you about. I invited her so you two could meet, I thought maybe you could do business together-?”

Christy immediately grabs my hand and shaking it frantically, “It is so lovely to meet you I’ve been looking forward to this all week it’ll be a pleasure working with you.”

It’s almost scary how much of that sentence she managed to get out before having to pause or take a break. She was a completely different woman from the one I had seen in the corridor, and I don’t trust this shift in character one bit.

“So, I’ll just leave you two to it?” Dad doesn’t wait for an answer before yeeting himself out the door and back into the party. I briefly hear him yell, “T’is the season to be jolly!” before the door sealed his voice and the music playing out.

“Right, so-” Christy starts to root through her handbag and pulls out a sheath of paperwork, - “What does ‘Cease and Desist’ mean?”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

Daphne and I both had Spanish first thing in the morning after registration, so we passed notes back and forth, much to the annoyance of Señorita García (she insisted we call her that). She only glared, however, and as a rule didn’t give out detentions, so we escaped her wrath scot free. We did, at least, keep our talking in class to a minimum until we had a speaking practice task.

“Shaggy and Scooby sure is late today, huh…” I remarked, glancing at his empty desk.

“He probably just overslept or something,-” Señorita García glared at the pair of us and gestured to the ‘Spanish Only’ sign she’d put up. Daphne put up her hands defensively, “Sorry, miss!”

She hid her face behind her notebook in order to roll her eyes and grin without the teacher noticing. I kicked her gently from under the table to remind her we needed to actually do the work, not that we had much left of the lesson to do that in.

“ _Mi madre saca a pasear al perra todos los días.”_ Daphne read from her notes before lowering her voice, “Did you do the Chemistry homework?”

“ _Tengo una planta de interior, se llama Jerry y la amo mucho. ¿Cómo es tu perro?”_ I’m fairly sure something in Daphne’s sentence didn’t quite make sense, but I didn’t bring it up, “Yeah, of course, why?”

“What the hell was going on with- ” Señorita García walked past, once again staring at us with narrowed eyes of suspicion, “-mi perro es gris, azul, y muy enérgico.,-”

Daphne checked to see if Señorita García was still watching, she wasn’t, and continued with her original question, “Question eight. What the _hell_?”

“It’s a titrations question, you needed to convert the units so you could put them all in the formula.” I explained as quickly as possible, “I’ll show you how during recess.”

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she hissed back gratefully, just as the bell went off, signalling the start of the next lesson, “Meet me in the quad!”

Daphne vanished out of the classroom before the bell had even finished ringing, quite a feat, I assure you.

The next lesson, Health and Social care, was generally uneventful as none of the rest of the gang were in my class. It struck me, again, that aside from three kids and a dog, I have no friends in this school. Or town, for that matter. Maybe I should make an effort to…?

At recess, I helped Daphne with the Chemistry homework while Fred inexplicably decided to sit with us, eating a pretzel. He’d recently gotten in the habit of hanging around with us despite not really being part of the Mystery Crew (we’re still working on a name…).

“Hey, Fred?” Daphne asked once she’d finished off her homework, “Have you seen Shaggy or Scooby today? You guys have History together last lesson, don’t you?”

Fred swallowed his mouthful of pretzel and shook his head, “No. Have you?”

I shook my head in response. “It’s odd. They’ve been late before, but they would never miss Waffle Wednesday.”

“Maybe one of them is ill?” Daphne suggested with a shrug, “If you guys are really worried, you should go check up on him at home.”

She glanced at the watch on her wrist, and started to pack away her possessions: the bell was probably going to go off soon.

“Yeah, let’s go to Shaggy’s!” Fred bolted up, before slowly sinking back into his seat, “I mean, … as his friends, it’s our duty to go check up on him…”

“And Scooby.” I added.

“Right. And Scooby.”

Daphne narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

We decided that when I had a free period next lesson, I’d use the school computers in the library to hack into the system and figure out Shaggy’s address, and that the three of us would go pay Shaggy and Scooby a visit during lunch.

“Wait, wait, I didn’t agree to hacking the school computers!” I protested after being assigned the task by the other two, “What if I get caught? And do you guys even know how networks work? They don’t even store student’s personal details on there!”

“You’ll figure it out, I’m sure.” Daphne tried to reassure me with a smile, wrapping one of her arms around my shoulders, “You have the best shot at it out of all of us, after all!”

I frowned, “Fine, but you owe me one.”

“Atta girl!” Fred called out, moving to also put his arm around my shoulders. I glared at him with as much menace I could muster, and his arm stopped a few inches away from my shoulders before he retracted it, chuckling awkwardly.

“Aha, well,… -“ the bell went off, cutting off whatever Fred was going to say, “Oh, welp, good luck Velma!” he called as he scuttled away to his next lesson as quickly as he possibly could.

Daphne shot me a look, “Please try to be nice to him. He _is_ trying, you know?”

“Hm, if you say so…” I responded simply.

“Good luck with the computers, okay?” Daphne started walking away, “I’m counting on you!”

She disappeared around a corner, and I was left alone in the corridor, students streaming and bustling to get to their next lesson all around me. I shifted my backpack to my other arm and set off to the library with absolutely no clue as to how I was to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oohhh, where is this going I wonder? (I mean, obviously I know, I'm writing this, but you know what I mean)
> 
> Writing may be difficult, but, boy, is writing Karen hecking fun!
> 
> How is everyone's quarantine going? (All I've really done is bake and cry.)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	13. Chapter 13

_**Daphne, now:** _

“So, what should we do first? I _really_ need your help with all of this…” Christy says with a pout, leaning towards me, “There’s just so much paperwork…”

My face twists into one of indignance. There is no way I’m working with _her_ , for plenty of reasons, too.

“F*ck off, no, I don’t want to work with you, are you _kidding_ me?” I snap back, “After what just happened how am I supposed to trust you?”

I picked up my glass from the little table I had left it on and stood up to leave.

“I’m sorry,-” Christy said, not meaning it,- “okay?”

“No, you’re an awful person and I don’t want to work with you. How much clearer can I make that-?” Christy grabs my sleeve and pulls me back, not letting me leave, - “The hell?”

“Why don’t you want to work with me?” she asks, her fake smile finally cleared from her face, “I’m an awful person and that’s it? You’ve got to at least give me a chance.”

I frown and narrow my eyes at her.

She lets go of my sleeve and sits back down on her chair, legs crossed, elbow on knee and chin resting on the back of her hand. She must’ve practiced this pose. “Go on, tell me why you don’t want to work with me.” she prompts.

“What do you even do?” I ask her, “And why do you need _my_ help? Surely there’s plenty of others that can help you.”

“But none have the legacy you have! Just imagine the notoriety I would get from having Daphne, of Mystery Inc. fame, working for me.” she replies, as if this way of thinking was perfectly obvious, “As for what I do…”

She pulls a piece of paper from her bag and hands it to me. It’s the legal documentation of the opening of a new bakery.

“You’re opening a bakery?” I ask her, my gut clenches and I get an immediate horrible sensation that this was going to cause problems, “You at least have all the qualifications, right? I hear it’s quite difficult…”

“Oh, of course not, _I_ won’t be doing the baking, don’t be ridiculous.” she explains, “I’m going to hire somebody to do that for me. I don’t want to get my hands covered in, what’s it called? The…”

“Flour?” I can’t help but wonder how spoiled one must have been as a child in order to not know the word for one of the most fundamental ingredients of baking.

“Yes, that.” she inspects her nails as she says this. “Plus, I live over half an hour away, I’m not going to travel that distance twice a day, that’s too much effort.”

“But…” I couldn’t help but wonder out loud, “what about the one we already have, y’know, the Piece of Cake? Won’t this affect their sales a little if you’re both competing in such a small street?”

“Pfft, _that_ tiny thing?” she laughs mockingly, “My bakery is going to blow that miserably quaint thing out of the water.”

Deciding that was enough, I take advantage of the fact that Christy was briefly distracted as she had started ranting about how much better her bakery was going to be and slip out of the door. I make my way through the crowd, keeping my head down just in case I bump into another person Dad was trying to set me up with. My coat is buried under a pile of about fifty coats, but I manage to pull it out eventually.

“Where are you going, Velma?” Mum pops out of nowhere, gin in hand. She’d clearly had a few too many, so I keep it brief.

“Just a walk. Need to clear my head.” Mum nods, understanding, and disappears into the crowd again before I can even get the door open. I hope she remembers, and I don’t get another lecture when I come back later.

I could still hear the music from the street, but it looks like all of our neighbours were at the party, and in no place to complain about the noise to the police. It’s dark and cold outside. The grass has ice forming on it and crunches when I step on it, almost like snow. I chuckle a little as I hop around, taking delight in the soft sound.

Who the hell does Christy Henderson think she is? Plus, it’s hardly as if me not liking her is the only reason I don’t want to, and can’t, work with her.

I’m busy helping Velma, for a start. And… _Never mind_ , I think to myself, pushing both Christy Henderson and the thought far into a corner of my mind, _they’re not going to find out, I’ll make sure of it._

I wander around the streets a little, looking at the shop windows all decked out for Christmas with swathes of red and green streamers. The lights, still unlit, hang above the top of the buildings. Apparently, they get lit on the 24th by the ‘Patron of the Year’, whatever that is.

I keep walking and find the nature reserve again. With a smile, I enter. Again, as before, memories of this place start to flood back. Nothing fully formed, just glimpses, really. Velma’s smile, a laugh, the sparking stream, Scooby shaking the water out of his fur, Fred’s limp wet hair, Shaggy being smacked in the face by a frisbee, the corner of a picnic blanket, that sort of thing.

I need to take a deep breath to steady myself before I get washed away in a wave of nostalgia.

Oddly, there’s a singular mallard duck waddling around, and I can’t help but laugh.

“What are you doing here, buddy?” I ask it, “Don’t you guys normally migrate south?”

The duck quacks at me in response.

“Are you hungry? It must be hard to find food here after all…” I start to root through my pockets to see if I have anything I ca give them.

All I’ve got in my left pocket is a packet of mints (I decided against that), and in my right, I have one of the bags of cookies I made with Velma.

“Do you want one, bud?” I hold one out to the duck, and they approach tentatively. They don’t seem to want to get too close, so I break it up a little and place it gently on the ground for them, backing away to a comfortable distance for them.

They take up the pieces gratefully, quacks at me a few times, then flies away.

“Bye, buddy!” I call after their disappearing figure, waving them goodbye like an absolute lunatic. I keep walking.

Despite having wanted to leave Crystal Cove for so long, I realise now that feel a lot safer here than I do in New York. Here, the threat of deadlines and rising property prices and horrible bosses and…

This time, as I start to spiral, I know a deep breath isn’t going to save me. I feel my breathing get frantic, and I start choking on the air. The coughing doesn’t clear my airways, it in fact makes it worse as I can’t catch my breath in between coughs. Eventually, it finally stops, and I’m completely wiped out, and sit down on the ground to help catch my breath. The exhaustion and the cold must be getting to me as my eyelids droop, and I drift in and out of sleep. I know it’s a horrible and possibly dangerous idea to sleep outside with no source of warmth during the winter, but I’m so tired…

When I come back around, I’m on a nearby bench with an old blanket over me, and I’m perfectly fine. There’s a faint whisper in the wind, resembling the sound of the words “You seemed cold.” in a vaguely familiar voice.

Maybe Crystal Cove isn’t entirely empty of ghosts after all.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

Fred and Daphne were waiting next to Fred’s van not long after the bell rang to signal lunch. Daphne, who was leaning against the van, spotted me first.

“Velma!” she called out, jumping up and down on the spot flailing her arms about, “We’re over here!”

“No need to shout, I can see you guys,” I tell her drily as I approached, “This carpark isn’t that large.”

“Did you get the address?” Fred asked. He seemed a little on the jumpy side but was trying to hide it as best he could.

I pulled out a folded-up piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to him. “Yeah.”

“Nice!” Daphne peered over Fred’s shoulder to read it. “What’d you have to do to get it? Was it really hard?” Daphne’s voice went (jokingly) serious, “Or are you not allowed to tell us for security reasons?”

I chuckled and shook my head, “Don’t even jest, Daph. The librarian just gave it to me after I told her what I needed it for. In fact-“ I pull out a canister of soup from my backpack, - “She even gave me this soup to take to them to help them feel better. I think it’s chicken…?”

“Right, - ” Daphne clapped her hands together – “Shall we get going?”

We all piled into the van, Fred driving, Daphne in passenger seat, and me in the back, leaning between the two seats in front so I can still talk to the others. Daphne moved to pull a map out of the glove box, but Fred shook his head, and instead turned on the screen above the radio.

“Oh!” Daphne exclaimed, “Is that..?”

“That’s a sat nav, right?” I asked Fred excitedly: I had read about these, but never gotten to see one in real life, until now. “I thought you could only get them in those Japanese cars?”

“My Dad got it custom fit into the van.” Fred said with a smug look of pride on his face, “After his business trip to Japan, he pretty much insisted all cars get them installed.”

“What does your Dad actually _do_ , Fred? I know he’ a mayor, but…” I trailed off.

Fred shrugged. “I don’t know, something in finance? I never asked.”

The entire car ride to Shaggy’s house, which was twenty minutes a most, I watched the sat nav do its work, hardly able to keep the wonder from shining on my face. I was almost disappointed when it announced that we had arrived at our destination.

Shaggy and Scooby’s (presumed) home was a small bungalow on the west side of Crystal Cove, closer to the mountains than the ocean. The path leading up to the house had hundreds of flowers and various plants lining it, although whether this was intentional or not was unclear. A bike had been left outside by either Benji or Sugie, I assumed.

Daphne and Fred seemed unsure what to do. Fred carried the look of someone who had never encountered a situation in which he has to approach a home unlike his own (as in, without a butler or someone similar to invite him in), and Daphne seemed to be having a hard time getting her head around a one-storey house.

“Rich kids.” I muttered under my breath, rolling my eyes, as I walked up the path to go knock on the door.

Before long, a short woman with short (whitish) blonde hair opened the door. “Hello?”

“Hi! We’re, em…” It only struck me then that our little “club” of mystery solvers didn’t actually have a name. I added it to my mental to-do list of things that need to get done.

Fortunately, while that was going on in my head, both Daphne and Fred had gathered about their wits and joined me on the doorstep. Fred, in a moment of absolute imbecility, tried to peer around the lady, as if Shaggy and Scooby would just conveniently appear behind her.

“Hello Mrs. Norville, nice to meet you, we’re friends of Shaggy and Scooby.“ Daphne told the lady with a smile, “Do you mind if we come inside?”

“Sure,” replied the woman, opening the door wider so we could step through the doorway. “Could you take your shoes off before you step on the carpet?”

We comply, and thus are invited to sit down in the living room.

The living room, although it seems small for one intended to be home to at least four people, is nicely furnished. Despite the worn patches on the sofa Daphne and I are sitting on, it’s comfortable, and the cushions seem to match the colour scheme of the room. Fred sat alone on the love seat opposite us (the irony), and the woman brought in a chair from the dining table in the kitchen. I offered her my seat, but she gestured for me to sit down.

“So,” she began, “I don’t believe we’ve met properly. I’m Shaggy’s mother, but you can just call me Paula.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs., em, … Paula.” Fred replied, “I’m Fred, and those two are Daphne and Velma.”

Both Daphne and I repeated the “Nice to meet you.” part.

“What bring you guys here? It’s your lunch break now, isn’t it? I hope the three of you aren’t skipping school.” Paula gave us a stern look, before it melted into a more maternal one. “Speaking of which, are you children hungry?”

“Thank you, but it’s alright: we ate on the way here.” Daphne informed her, “We just came to check up of Shaggy and Scooby: they weren’t in school this morning, and we were worried that one of was ill or something.”

“Oh, but…” Paula replied, her welcoming smile dropping, “I thought he was with you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I've planned the plot out, I don't know if Velma and Daphne actually end up together in the end. As in, it would be heartwarming and lovely if they did, but also there's a part of my brain want it to end without them being together.
> 
> I don't know. We'll see.
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> -MoonRenegade


	14. Chapter 14

_**Daphne, now:** _

By the time I had gotten home from my walk, the party had pretty much petered out, with the occasional person stilling milling about, trying to help clean up some of the mess. I headed straight upstairs, and reinvigorated from my little nap in the park, I got to work. Research wasn’t sitting quite right with me, though, so I switch to a more fun task.

As soon as I get into the flow, I lose track of the time, as I had been so engrossed in the task of making Alexi’s birthday present, and suddenly it was five am and the sun was already starting to rise, something I only noticed because my phone lit up and started vibrating, breaking my concentration.

Picking it up, I could feel my eyes sting with the exhaustion of focusing on one thing for so long. I blink a few times, and the stinging fades.

It’s Velma, calling me.

“Hi?” I say into the phone.

“Daphne! So, you _are_ awake.” Velma’s chipper voice replies. “Go to sleep! Okay, bye-”

“Wait!” I hurriedly say before she can hang up on me, “Was that all you wanted to call me about? How did you even know I was awake?”

“Look outside your window, dumb*ass!” I do so, and at the edge of my parents’ property, almost as expected, is Velma waving at me. “I was on my way to deliver Mrs Jensen’s bread, and saw that your light was still on, and if I remember correctly, you can’t sleep without an eye mask, let alone with the lights still on.”

“You stalker!” I laugh down the phone at her, “Thank you, though, for keeping an eye out for me.”

There’s a slight pause, as if she can’t think of a reply, before I see Velma off in the distance simply give me a thumbs up. “Now go to sleep, today’s the church faire! And don’t forget your baking friendly clothing. Bye!” She ends the call, waves once more, and disappears down the street.

_Sh*t_. The church faire had completely slipped my mind amongst the chaos of the party. There’s not really much I can do now, so I leave my sewing things be on the table and take Velma’s advice, the exhaustion crashing over me as soon as I lay down.

Four and a half hours later, powered by a nap and copious amounts of coffee, I meet Velma outside the town square.

The town square, which had been empty and barren just last night, had miraculously transformed into a makeshift market, with stalls arranged in two circles around the statue of the founder, the outer most one facing inwards and the inner circle stalls facing outwards. Fairy lights are strung up between the stalls and the scent of mulled wine drifts through the air as the stall owners set up their stalls for the day. Some were clearly regulars, such as Billy who has been selling fish here since I was a kid, while others were novelty stores that only appear during special occasions (no shade to them).

“So,- ” Velma claps her hands together. I imitate her, for the sake of it, and she has to hold back a laugh. “-I’ve already baked everything we need for today, but most of it is still back at the bakery. Your job for today is to bring in the extra stock as we need it or serve customers at the stall while I go get it. Can you handle that?”

I flash her a double thumbs up, “Restocking and managing the public, got it.”

“Thank you!” Velma wraps me in hug, “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you: Emily ‘fell ill’ last night.”

“Is she alright?” I ask once I’m released from the hug. We head towards the stall as we need to make sure everything is set up in time.

“Yeah, it’s just a hangover, from the sounds of it.” Velma hands me a folded blanket from behind the stall counter, “Probably got it at the party your parents threw last night.”

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me: you didn’t go?” I unfurl the blanket and drape it over the counter and smooth it down, “Mum told me she specifically invited you because she wanted to ask you to cater for New Year’s.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t go. I needed to wake up early to prep for this.” she informed me, keeping her head down as she crouched to reach the things below the counter. She places a basket assorted Christmas treats (gingerbread, Vanillekipferl, and more of the jammy star cookies we’d made together) on the counter as well as a handful of ribbons.

“Maybe you should take a break once in a while?” I suggest to her, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you properly relax, especially in high school.”

“Well,…” Velma stands up, holding another two baskets of baked goods, “Maybe you should take a break, too. I’ve spoken to your mother, and she seems to agree with me on that.”

“You talked to my mum?” She starts tying the ribbons to the baskets and the poles on either side of the counter holding the stall roof up, and gestures for me to do the same.

“Of course I did! From what I hear, you never visit more than once every few years, and according to her, you spend most of that time typing away at your laptop, too busy at work to properly celebrate the holidays with your family!” she semi-yells at me, throwing her hands into the air, “So don’t tell me that _I_ need a break.”

“But that’s different.” I protest, but to no avail. Velma’s face remains tense and ticked off.

“How, then?” she demands. We’ve both stopped even trying to pretend we’re setting up the stall as the conversation goes on, and some of the other stall owners had started to glance over to check what was going on. The tension between the two of us, separated only by a flimsy wooden counter, was palpable.

Before the argument can escalate further, the church bell rings ten in the distance, signifying the beginning of the faire.

Velma points a dagger-like handul of coloured ribbons at me, “This conversation isn’t over, just paused.”

I laugh awkwardly and enter the stall from the side before I can get swept away by the crowd.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

“I drove Shaggy to school myself; I know he went this morning.” Paula informed us, her calm manner switched out for barely concealed anger, threatening to bubble over the surface, “I even let that darned mutt inside my car.”

“Scooby is hardly just some ‘mutt’, he’s a Great Dane? And a pure bred by the looks of it.” I couldn’t help but blurt out.

“I don’t know what kind of sick joke you children are trying to play, but it is not amusing.” Paula rose from her chair, powered by quiet fury, and moved to open the door, “Pardon the sudden goodbye, but you children need to go back to school and stop pulling these kinds of ridiculous pranks.”

“But, Mrs-!” Fred tried to protest.

“No, I know your generation find this kind of thing ‘funny’, but it isn’t funny to me.” Paula seemed genuinely pissed off by this point, so we collectively decide it’s best if we left then rather than overstay our welcome.

“And if that damned dog has put you up to this, tell it that it’s sleeping outside tonight!” Paula slammed the door behind us, causing Fred to jump a little.

“Well, what now?” Daphne asked, glancing at her watch, “We’ve only got fifteen minutes of lunch left.”

We started walking back towards Fred’s van as we talked.

“Paula said she dropped Shaggy and Scooby off, right? Wouldn’t that mean that Shaggy would’ve had to at least drop off his backpack in his locker before they disappeared off to wherever they went?” I wondered aloud.

“You think there might be clues to where they went in Shaggy’s locker?” Daphne queried.

I nodded. “I’m not sure if we’re warranted in going through someone’s private property, and I don’t know about you, but it is a little worrying to me that Shaggy and Scooby seem to have just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

Fred, who had been otherwise silent during this short exchange, interjected with: “Back to school it is then!”

As we all piled into the van once more, I glanced up at the sky and noticed the dark grey clouds looming above, as well as the trees swaying as large gusts of wind rushed through. It was looking like a storm was coming.

Conveniently, Fred knew exactly where Shaggy’s locker was, as well as the locker combination for it. He simply went red and quiet when Daphne questioned him on knowing this particular fact, so she left him be.

Shaggy’s locker seemed to be an absolute tip. When we opened the door, an array of trash flooded down upon us, covering us with random bits of food debris and half smoked blunts. Something blue and sharp narrowly missed my eyes. His textbooks had been hastily shoved in above the mountain of filth, and the scent of rot and sweat wafted out of his locker. The metal locker door was plastered with various 60s inspired artwork, all stained with a variety of sauces. And in the middle of it all, a newspaper clipping from a week ago.

“’Rumours of Ghost Re-emerge After Yet Another Sighting’,” I read aloud to the rest of the group. “Why would Shaggy hang this up?”

“I know, right? It doesn’t go well with anything else here! What even is his colour scheme? Does he have a certain look in mind?” Daphne replied as she attempted to shuffle the pictures around to suit her tastes better.

Fred picked up a little piece of paper that had fluttered down when we opened the locker and turned it towards us with a look of surprise on his face. “This is Alderman Jensen’s address. Y’know Andy, Daphne, he lives just up your road.”

“Who’s Alderman Jensen?” I ask the pair, who seemed to have moved on without me.

“Andy -that’s his first name- is this rich old guy who lives at the edge of Crystal Cove, right by the cliffs overlooking the actual cove.” Daphne helpfully informed me. “He mostly keeps to himself.”

“Although I think he’s not alone in that mansion of his: I’ve seen shadows of multiple people in the windows after Andy went out.” Fred whispered dramatically.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Fred, it’s probably just his staff.” Daphne dismissed curtly. “Should we head over-?”

“But it’s not! According to Dad, Andy refuses to hire anyone other than a gatekeeper and a butler, both of which live in a separate building.” Fred interrupted her.

“Enough!” snapped back Daphne, sick of getting talked over, “I was _trying_ to ask you if we should pay Andy a visit after school? Paula doesn’t believe us, so if Shaggy and Scooby really are in trouble, we’re the only people who can save them.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Fred replied with a shrug, “Dad’s been telling me I should visit him anyway.”

The two of them glanced at me as I had remained silent on the matter. They were clearly waiting for me to answer. I flickered my eyes between the two of them.

“By ‘paying a visit’, do you mean breaking and entering or do you mean simply dropping by for a cup of tea and a chat?” I ask the two of them.

“Well, …” Daphne seemed suddenly fascinated by her shoes.

“We’ll just go say hi.” Daphne looked shocked to hear this, but Fred doesn’t acknowledge this, “We don’t have enough evidence to justify breaking and entering, so we shouldn’t.”

I narrow my eyes at Daphne, aware that those weren’t her intentions, but ultimately decide that Fred will (hopefully) keep us in line with the law, being the son of the mayor and all.

“Alright, I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I support Black Lives Matter, and I'm trying to be the best ally I possibly can as be as a non-American. If you don't know what I'm talking about (hopefully not), please do some research and look into it. 
> 
> Here's a link to Zoe Amira's video, which you can watch to help raise money for various causes (make sure to *not* skip all ads to increase ad revenue) if you cannot afford to donate: https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbCgLa25fDHM&ved=2ahUKEwiCxp_nju_pAhUVu3EKHfwwC0QQ3e4CMAF6BAgLEAg&usg=AOvVaw0Qx1aMJ1WhLM62PGNB8K7D
> 
> And here's a website with a ton of ways to help, such as signing petitions: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ 
> 
> "It's not enough to be not racist, you have to be anti-racist" 
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	15. Chapter 15

_**Daphne, now:** _

As soon as the crowd starts picking up pace, we’re running out of bread at an alarming rate. On my third time restocking, I carry as many baskets and packages I possibly can, and a couple more, in the hopes that Velma hadn’t been left to an empty stall by the time I get back. The argument we’d (sort of) had was still playing over and over in my head. Something about it just made me feel sick to my stomach, and it wasn’t just the part where I’m straight up li-

“Daphne!” I hear a voice call across the road. When I glance around for the source, I see Karen, bundled up to the heavens, flailing one of her arms about, trying to catch my attention. She’s got a small bundle pressed close to her chest, and a toddler by her side. Once she sees that I’ve seen her, she takes up the toddler’s hand and crosses the road towards me.

“Daphne, nice to see you again, I didn’t really get to talk to you much at the party, and-,” at this point, Karen had reached where I was standing and I could get a better look at the small bundle she was clutching. It was a little baby, face red from either crying into Karen’s shoulder or the heat of the layers of clothing they had been dressed in. “-I wanted to catch up, y’know? How’s it going?”

“Good, everything’s ...fine.” I wave a little at the toddler, who hides behind Karen’s leg, “Hi, there.”

I do the polite shift from one foot to the other, trying to indicate best I can that I don’t have that much time to hang around and chat: I _really_ don’t want to get into Velma’s bad books.

“Oh, have you met my oldest yet?” Karen nudges the toddler forwards, tilting her head towards me, “This is Kayleigh, and the youngest here is Maxwell, and my absolute darling Addyson is at home with her dad.”

I nod politely and try to start backing away towards the town square as quickly as I can get away with. “They’re so cute. I’ve got to-”

“Y’know Kaleigh learned a new word recently? Do you want to show the nice lady, Kayleigh?” The toddler shook her head and hid further behind her mother’s leg, seemingly to Karen’s annoyance. Karen tries to coerce her child forward, but Kayleigh is having none of it.

I decide to take this opportunity to try to leave. “Um, if that’s all, I kind of need to go… It’s, just, I’m helping Velma with the church faire, and…”

“You’re helping Velma?” Karen seems genuinely surprised by this and stops harassing her child to perform for me to look up at me with a look of astonishment.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” One of the baskets start slipping so I have to shift slightly, almost causing another to fall.

“It’s odd, that’s all, you two weren’t exactly friends when we all graduated, or for the entire time _we_ were friends.” she said, shifting Maxwell to her hip. “And anyway, I was just on the way to pass on a message to Velma.”

“Should I pass it on for you? Seeing as I’m heading towards her anyway and you seem busy…” I start to walk again, Karen and her kids right at my heels.

“Oh, that would be fantastic!” Thank goodness, I thought to myself as Karen pulled out a folded flyer from her pocket and passed it onto me. “Christy -y’know the lady from the party last night?-“

“Couldn’t forget her.” I say with a taunt smile.

“Yes, she wanted me to give this to Velma.” As I unfold the flyer, I feel even the fake smile fall as dread falls over me. This must’ve been part of Christy’s plan this entire time.

“I’ve… I’ve got to go right now, sorry, bye!” I don’t look behind me or wait for a reply before starting to run the best I can without dropping the baked goods.

I heard Karen call goodbye after me as I charged through the streets. The town square was only a short walk from where Karen and I had been talking, so it doesn’t take long before I’m wrestling through the crowds of disgruntled adults and children with eyes bright from the lights above. It feels like I’m moving through sludge, so slowly it seems like I’m just barely outpacing a snail. I _have_ to get this to Velma before it’s too late.

Struggling to catch my breath, from the exertion, not panic, I dump the baked goods onto the counter and pull Velma to the side. I can’t get any words out in between breaths, so I simply hand her the flyer while I try to bring my breathing back to normal, back hunched over, grabbing one of the poles holding up the roof for support.

“Daphne?” Velma seems concerned and starts looking around for some help. “We didn’t need to restock that badly that you needed to run so fast.”

I wave away her concern and instead try to pull her attention back to the leaflet in her hand.

When she opened the flyer and read its content, her face drained of colour.

“Sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t-” Velma starts a small tirade of curses, pacing the small space in the stall.

Having regained my breath, I pull myself up to standing position and go to close the shutters of the stall to signify its closure, smiling apologetically at the elderly couple who had been patiently waiting to be served.

“Sorry, we’re having a bit of an issue, but maybe if you come back later we can serve you. Sorry for the inconvenience.” I tell them, switching into customer service mode, which I hadn’t done in a _long_ time.

Velma, who seems to be going into full on panic mode, is still pacing around. Unsure of what else to do, I pull her into a hug, and we slowly sink to the ground.

It’s dark in the stall after I closed the shutters, and significantly warmer in here than outside, but I notice than Velma is shivering, or possibly shaking. I slip off my coat and wrap it around her shoulders.

“It’s going to be okay.” I tell her in a hushed tone, “We can sort this out, right?”

I hear a small sniff, but no response.

“Hey, hey, you don’t have to cry…” Using the little light there is, I wipe away the tears I can see running down her cheeks. “What time did the flyer say?”

“Three o’clock.” came the reply.

“And what time is it now?” I try to say as encouragingly, but not patronisingly, as I possibly can.

Velma pulls out her phone and shows me the lock screen, a photo of her mother, “It’s eleven thirty-four.”

“Which gives us three and a bit hours to sort this out. Should we get off this f*cking freezing floor to go do that now?” Velma chuckles a little as I pull her up.

She pulls me into another hug just before we leave the stall.

“Thank you.” I hear her whisper before she pulls away and leaves me alone in the stall.

“Thank you more.” 

_**Velma, 1994:**_

When Fred pulled up to Alderman Jensen’s mansion of a home, it struck me how old it seemed. It was clearly built in around the 1880s, judging by the Italianate architecture, which would mean this building is one of the oldest, if not _the_ oldest, building in Crystal Cove, possibly even one of the first ones built in the area. The crumbling brick and peeling paint did nothing to comfort the anxiety in my stomach as the whole structure looked like it could collapse in on itself at the slightest of touches. All around the property, “DO NOT ENTER” and “PRIVATE PROPERTY” signs were littered about, discouraging visitors from going past the garden gate. The tower stuck in the middle of the house was clearly supposed to hint at the Italian belvedere, but there didn’t seem to be much of a view to enjoy from its heights as the garden had primarily fallen into disrepair and was now overgrown with various weeds.

“Ugh, this… thing is sticking to me!” Daphne complained as we waded through the garden, trying to stick to the barely visible path best we could. Some sandbur had stuck to the fabric of her dress and she was having a hard time dislodging them. “Andy needs to really clean up his garden, or get his staff on it or something, honesty…”

Fred, with perfect timing, fell into a bush of stinging nettles, much to his (and his skin’s) irritation. Rolling my eyes, I pull him up and glance around to see if I can find any conveniently growing dock plants nearby. Unsuccessful in my search, I simply tell Fred to not touch his skin for a bit until we can get inside to wash off the nettle’s gunk off of him.

No answer came when we knocked on the door, and ringing the doorbell only resulted in a warning being played over speakerphone.

“Leave the property at once.” it boomed, “Ringing the doorbell another time will result in disastrous consequences.”

“Looks like he’s not home.” I said with a shrug, turning to go. Daphne grabbed the back of my sweater and pulled me back. “Jinkies!”

“It can’t hurt to ring it another time, Velma.” She said, she finger hovering near the button, a mischievous glint in her eye, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

The worst that could happen, apparently, was creepy music playing over the speaker and the patio beneath us to creak. I stepped back, just in case, and the other two do the same. After a minute or two of loud creaking, the trapdoor below where we were standing gave way, revealing a dark hole.

“Woah…” Fred knelt down next to the hole and stuck his down it. His voice, echoey and muffled, called out, “It’s so dark in here I can’t see my own nose!”

“Apparently it’s not just the garden no-one’s taken care of.” I remark to myself.

Daphne pulled him up by the scruff of his collar (jeez, what is it with today and moving people around by grabbing their clothing?) and pulled him away from the hole before he could fall into it. I go get a rock from the garden and drop it in, counting the seconds until I hear a sound. Even though I got to a hundred, I still heard nothing indicating that it had stopped falling.

While I had been trying to figure out how impossibly deep this hole seemed to be, Daphne had disappeared around the side of the house. She reappeared now, gesturing for us to follow her. “I found a way in!”

Fred seemed fully on board with this idea of breaking and entering, and Daphne seemed to not be able to hear my protests reminding her that this is illegal. She’d led us to a backdoor that seemed to lead into a kitchen of sorts.

From what I could see inside from the dirty plane of glass in the centre of the door, the kitchen was dark and antique looking. It wasn’t 1880s old, so it must’ve been renovated since then as it had some modern appliances, although no dishwasher judging by the stacks of plates and pots on the counter next to the door leading to the rest of the house.

The door seemed slightly less old than the rest of the house, and the back garden seemed a little better taken care of than the back. Although the mansion’s, presumably, previously luxuriant garden no longer held the magic of even flat grass and blooming flowers in a rainbow of colours, the garden now didn’t appear to be overgrown, simply rather barren as if someone had prepared the garden to plant something, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

She held the door open for me to step through after Fred. I refused to step through.

“Velma, aren’t you curious about finding out what this mystery has to offer?” she asked me, arms crossed and her face giving away no hint a to what she was thinking of.

“Although the mystery intrigues me, I want to find Shaggy and Scooby and, preferably, _not break the law.”_ I told her, “We haven’t even told the police about any of this yet!”

“You know as well as I do that the police won’t believe a group of teenagers, especially if Paula doesn’t believe her son and his dog is missing.”

I begrudgingly have to agree with her.

“So, if you’re not coming inside with us, _go home_.” She turned and walked into the mansion, speed walking so as to, presumably, catch up with Fred, leaving my alone to make up my mind, _again_.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Why the heck would she do this?” Velma asks out loud as we walk to the bakery as quickly as our legs would take us without slipping on the (barely there) ice. “It’s almost as if she’s purposely trying to sabotage my bakery.”

“I have a feeling she is.” I reply, “Last night, at the party, Dad tried to set me up with her, - purely business, don’t worry- and she started ranting about how she was going to destroy your bakery in sales. This kinda sounds like it could be part of her ploy.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Velma unwinds the scarf around her neck and swings it idly, “It just seems so mean, and shady.”

“You know what shady means?” I laugh, “But I thought you didn’t keep up with “the trends”.”

“Emily taught me what it meant. Gen Z, y’know.” Velma replies with a soft smile, “She’s trying to get me on to this thing, … I think it’s called TokTik?”

“TikTok.” I correct her.

“Ah.” she nods.

“And what are you planning on making? It has to be showstopper if it’s going to impress these so-called judges for this-,” I glance at the flyer again-, “ ‘Bake Off’?”

Velma laughs, “And you call _me_ behind the times? How do you not know what Bake Off is?”

“Hey, it’s not my job to keep up with the kids nowadays!” I protest jokingly, “I know it’s something to do with baking, … and that’s about it.”

“It’s a British TV show about a group of home bakers who have to prove their baking skills and whoever does the best job gets the title of ‘Britain’s Best Amateur Baker’!” Velma tells me excitedly, her face radiant with pure, unfiltered joy.

“I’ll check it out at some point.”

Velma unlocks the bakery door, light-heartedly bows, and holds the door open for me. “Your highness.”

“You are ridiculous.” I inform her with a smile as she snaps on the lights. “What _are_ you planning on making, though?”

“Ehhhhmmm, …” she trails off.

“You don’t know?” I hang up my coat and stuff my gloves into the pocket.

“Not quite. I can’t make up my mind, that’s all.” she keeps her eyes trained to the ground, “Either I make a really difficult recipe I’ve never made before, or I go for an easier classic that won’t be as impressive.”

Behind her, while she’s talking, I see a jar of cookies left out for customers to sample on the counter. I go and grab two, take a bite out of one and hand the other to Velma, “Well, I say risk it for the biscuit.”

“This -,” she raises an eyebrow and smirks, - “is a cookie.”

“Pretend!” I laugh, throwing my hands up in the air, defeated, “Plus, isn’t it called a biscuit in Britain, or something?”

Velma laughs and stuffs the cookie in her mouth. She brushes the crumbs from her hands and goes to get her big book of recipes, gesturing for me to get the aprons.

When I return, Velma had put the recipe book on its stand, preheated the oven and started gathering ingredients.

“’Chocolate orange tiramisu trifle’?” I read aloud from the book. “That sounds… complex.”

“It is, _if_ you don’t have sponge fingers, but we have some in the cupboard so we should have plenty of time to make this in time for-” Velma opens one of the cupboards, only to find it empty, - “F*ck.”

She closes her eyes for a moment and just takes a couple of breaths to calm herself down. “Goddamn it, Emily, I told you not to eat the ones in the cupboard.”

“What time is it?” she snaps at me. Realising that she had sounded harsher than she meant to, she softens her voice, “Sorry. Em, can you tell me what time it is? Please?”

“Eleven fifty- twelve o’clock.”

“We’re going to be a little tight on time, so we really need to as efficient as possible. I need you to follow these instructions to a ‘T’, okay? While I go call Emily, I need you to use a sharp knife to cut away all the peel and pith from the two oranges over there on the counter. Slice thinly, put them in the bowl and add the marsala, got it?”

“Got it.” I flash her a thumbs up and get to work.

The next two hours passed in a flurry icing sugar, flour, and egg whites, until Velma and I find ourselves sitting on the floor, having just placed our tiramisu in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Velma glanced at the clock on the wall. “Just in the nip of time.”

”Yep.” I raise my hand for a high five, Velma obliges.

“Thanks for your help.” she says, turning to me. “Again, I don’t think I could’ve done it without you.”

“Don’t thank me now, you haven’t won yet!” I joke.

“Not yet, no.” Velma chuckles, “Y’know, if you want, there’s some spare cookie dough in the fridge, we have enough time to make some more of those Jammy Star Cookies. Risk it for the biscuit?”

“Hm, no, I’m good. I think we deserve a break now, don’t you?” I can see the window from where I’m sitting, as well as the fluctuating stream of people heading towards and away from the town square.

Velma scoots closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder. “We deserve it.”

“Oh, yeah, it the stall still closed? That can’t be good for business, right?” I ask Velma.

“Emily’s on it. I asked her to cover for me in exchange for overtime pay and not firing her for the sponge fingers.” Velma groans, “I already feel bad about it, I’ll probably give her tomorrow off to apologise.”

“Fair enough. There’s been worse, though, I see it all the time at work.”

“But, you’re a corporate personnel managerial person thingy, all you do is lay people off to cut costs, how is that worse?” she scoots away to look at me better.

“Oh, about that…-”

“And anyway, I think it’s time we go and check on Emily. We’ve got an hour until it’s done, and my butt is already hurting from sitting here.” Velma doesn’t let me finish, pulling me up off the ground and chucking my coat to me from the coat hanger. “Let’s go!”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

I could hear Daphne and Fred pottering about inside, just outside of my window of vision provided by the door. As much as the curiosity of this mystery and this house was pulling me towards them, the fear of the law was holding me back. This was on top of my anxiety surrounding the safety of this building, despite how irrational the fear the house collapsing on top of us is. My mind kept alternating between leaving and staying, causing me to simply ballroom dance around the small back porch.

Eventually, realising that if I left it any later I won’t be able to catch up with the others, I summoned any courage I possessed and walked through the door.

The kitchen was creepy and, despite the sixties’ colourful style it had adopted (and neglected in more recent years), dark. It hadn’t exactly fallen into disrepair due to lack of use, in fact a lot of the appliances still appeared to be working, judging by the low hum of the refrigerator and the slow dripping of the tap. (It appears that Fred followed my advice and cleaned up his skin of the chemicals from the nettles.) Judging by the state of this place, whoever used to maintain this kitchen had disappeared and those who remained never bothered to cleaned up after themselves following their disappearance.

There was a plate on a chair, so I picked it up and wiped the dust off of it with my sleeve. It was a commemorative plate featuring an illustration of two elephants, the older one protecting the young by holding them close. I smiled and put the plate back down.

Suddenly, breaking me out of the investigative trance, a high-pitched scream split the air.

It sounded like Daphne, so, concerned, I ran headlong to where I had heard it come from.

I found Daphne and Fred in the hallway, staring at something on the ground. The hallway seemed to be in slightly better condition: the wallpaper was only slightly peeling from the walls, the paintings were still in their frames, albeit on the floor, and the carpet was mostly clean, aside from the blood splatter Fred and Daphne were staring at.

There were a couple more around them, but they were all quite small rather old looking. At least a couple months old, as I tell the pair. “Nothing to worry about. It’s not like someone’s been shot.” I say, laughing.

“Yes, but it’s _blood_.” Daphne insisted, “What if someone is hurt?”

I bent down and outlined the blood splatter in the air, “Look, the almost circular shape here indicates that is was expelled with some force, like from a cough, but most of it was just gravity. Someone was probably just ill and coughing up blood. It happens if you have a cough for a prolonged time, or if you have a chest infection.”

“Oh, so nothing to worry about, Daphne.” Fred said, putting his arm around her. She glared at him and shrugged off his arm. This was not the first time this had happened, so I vowed to keep a closer eye on him.

Daphne’s eyes lit up as she saw something behind me and started walking towards it. I whirled around and found myself facing an archway into a library.

The library had floor to ceiling shelving crammed with books upon books, which was particularly impressive as the library room actually consisted of two floors combined into one. An ancient looking creaking ladder could be moved around via a rail system that spanned the entirety of the room. Like the kitchen and the hallway, the library was dusty and seemingly in poor condition. In the centre of the room, there was an antique writer’s desk with a million tiny compartments over spilling with various knick-knacks.

Daphne was going through them, pulling out framed pinned butterflies, ivory tusks, masks from all over the world, that sort of thing. Fred stepped forwards, gaping in awe at the sheer splendour and extravagance of the room. I heard something crunch under his feet, so I held him back from going further.

Upon further inspection, I found that the carpet was curiously slightly damp in certain areas, and that Fred had stepped on a tiny clear quartz shard. There were a couple more of these shards littered about, which I went about collecting what I could and put them in my pocket for safe keeping.

“Guys! Look what I found!” Daphne called from up above. She must’ve become tired of the desk as she had ascended the ladder and was now holding a book aloft. She climbed down to show us the book.

“’Love is in the Earth’?” I read aloud, “What the hell sort of nonsense is this?”

“My mother has a copy of this, it’s about crystal healing and stuff. Mother swears by this lady, Melody, apparently she’s a _genius_.” Daphne flipped through the pages idly, eyes skimming the page but taking none of it in.

Fred pulls another book from the shelves, one of the few not coated in what appeared to be an inch of dust, “That’s not the only magic book, see? ‘Magic: An Occult Primer by David Conway’. I had no idea Andy bought into this magic cr*p…”

“Yeah, from what I know, he hardly travels further than the grocer’s, so where would he have even got the idea? Mum only got into this stuff after coming back from her trip to-”

“Speaking of Jensen, hide!” I could hear footsteps coming down the hallway and so duck behind the desk. I saw Fred frantically shove the book back in its place and duck behind an armchair in the corner. Daphne dove into my hiding spot.

“What are you doing here, there’s not enough space under here!” I whispered frantically to her and shoved her out, “Go find a better spot before we get caught!”

“Budge over, there isn’t enough time.” she hissed back, clambering under the desk again.

It was perfect timing, too: I could see the archway from a narrow slit in the wood of the desk. Jensen, an emaciated, hunched over gentleman whose clothes hung off of him in such a way indicating significant weight loss, walked into the room. His hands, held before him like a t-rex, trembled from the effort of holding an obnoxiously large golden key before him. I nudged Daphne, indicating to her as silently as I could that she should look as well.

He walked over to a bookshelf, glanced around a few times, then stuck the key into one of the books, turned it, and pushed the hidden door open. I saw Daphne’s mouth drop open in shock as Jensen stepped through and closed the door behind him.

Once we were certain Jensen had been gone long enough for it to be safe, we climbed out of our hiding spots and gathered together in the centre of the room.

“The frick was that?” Daphne pondered, growing increasingly frantic, “Why is there a secret door? Where does it go?”

“I don’t know,” I told them, “but I think this is enough for one day, I don’t feel safe here, we should go home.”

“I agree.” an unfamiliar voice spoke from behind us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Father's day everyone!  
> -MoonRenegade


	17. Chapter 17

_**Daphne, now:** _

The faire, somehow, is even more bustling than it was when we left. To borrow a phrase from A Christmas Carol, “they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty” (Velma made me read in back in high school), but it wasn’t children, it was adults, and there are definitely more than forty people here.

Emily, however, seems to be coping with the crowd perfectly well. She’s in her late teens or early twenties with dark brown hair, presently pulled back into a ponytail, and in the process of serving the elderly couple from earlier.

Velma, approaching the stall, waves briefly to catch her attention. Emily waves back, finishes up serving and goes to hold up the curtain so we can enter the stall.

“Hi, Emily! Do you need a hand?” Velma enters first and holds the curtain back, allowing me to follow her inside. “Sorry to jump this on you without any notice…”

“No, no, I’m good.” Emily replies, “Don’t worry about it.”

During this rather brief exchange, I had stood in the corner, unsure of whether or not to introduce myself or hold back, and Emily had seemingly not noticed me until this point.

“Who’s this?” she asks.

Velma pinches the bottom of my coat sleeve and pulls me forwards, as though she’s scared to touch me, “This is Daphne, she’s… an old friend. We used to be in Mystery Inc. together, and-“

“Uh-huh.” Emily seems about as interested in this as much as a dog enjoys being petted too roughly by a small child, i.e. not at all.

“Well, anyway, do you want a coffee, or something?” Velma asks, changing the subject, “Daphne and I were going to wander around the stalls for a little bit.”

“Could you get me a mulled wine? The guy at the stall doesn’t believe I’m old enough to drink, the c*nt.”

“You are _not_ drinking on the job, young lady! Also watch that potty mouth of yours.” Velma protests, glancing around to see if any customers had heard (they hadn’t), while Emily simply shrugs, “Isn’t your boyfriend running that stall, though?”

“Yep. He’s being annoying on purpose ‘cos he thinks I stole his favourite hoodie.” Emily seems entirely nonchalant about this entire thing. In fact, she hasn’t looked up from inspecting her nails the whole time we’ve been talking. She adds in a mocking impression, “ ‘Immature people don’t get mulled wine’, b*stard.”

“I mean, did you?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“No, I just borrowed it.” She smirks, and I can’t help but laugh. She kind of reminds me of Makaela in some ways. “I’ll give it back to him at some point.”

Velma waves one of her hands about in the air, as if she’s trying to wave away the distraction, “Enough of a tangent, Emily, should I get you a hot chocolate?”

“I’m not a child, _boss_ , I’ll have a latte.” she relies, adding, “Thank you.” as we leave.

It wasn’t difficult to find the hot drink stall: we just had to follow the smell of melting chocolate and the source of radiating heat. The stall had one of the longest queues of any of the stalls here, possibly due to the slowly approaching darkness that was only a couple hours away.

“Emily’s younger than I was expecting.” I comment aloud to Velma as we join the back of the queue, “If she’s Claire’s little sister, that means they have a pretty significant age gap between the two of them, right? Like, at least a decade if not two.”

Velma pauses before answering.

“Well, it’s just a rumour, but, do you remember Daniel, Claire’s brother? People reckon he got someone pregnant and that Emily’s the kid they had together.” Velma told me in a lowered voice, “That, or their mother had an affair. It would at least explain why she’s the only mixed race kid in a family of white folk.”

“That’s one thing I don’t miss about this place: everyone knows everything about each other.” I sigh, “Is there no privacy?”

“I actually quite like it.” Velma replies, “We help each other out when we need to.”

“Like Maddy?” I point out. Velma’s smile diminishes a little.

“Well, no, but-“

Velma is cut off from continuing further by a squeal a little away from where we’re queuing. When I glanced over to see the source, I find Peter Murphy, yet _another_ old high school friend. It’s almost as if someone specifically filled Crystal Cove with only things that would trigger my memories of high school and _absolutely nothing else._

“DAPHNE BLAKE! You’re back in town!” Peter squealed, blindsiding me to enveloping me in a hug so tight I struggled to breathe.

Peter, surprisingly given his reaction to seeing me back in town, was rather inconsequential to my high school life. Like Karen, we’d been in the same social circles, but were never actually that close of friends. He had been the token gay kid in our conservative area, and certainly made ripples for it, but he was basically just a gateway homosexual that doesn't set off parents, which, in the end, did nothing for the community (LGBTQ+ or otherwise). He was quite funny, though, and it looks like he’s matured since then.

“Peter, nice to see you too.” I manage to say before the air is entirely squeezed out of my lungs.

I pat him on the back a few times and he lets me go, allowing me to get a better look at him.

In recent years, he’d gained more weight, and a fiancé by the looks of the ring and the guy he’s now holding hands with. His hairline had started to recede and was speckled with grey hair. Contrary to the stereotype, Peter was not your fit, well-groomed gentleman, he was in fact rather portly and dressed like a dad (socks and sandals, that kind of thing). In high school, he was a geeky theatre kid who wanted to be an actor when he was older, but I never found out if he ever accomplished that particular dream.

“Oh, my gosh, how have you been? I’ve missed you.” he says, emphasising the last word with a prod in the shoulder.

Velma and Peter’s partner had started talking while I was stuck in Peter’s hug: they seem to know each other.

“I doubt you barely noticed me being gone, Peter, you’re always keeping yourself busy these days.” I reply, “How’s your acting dream coming along?”

“Oh, you!” he pulls me in for another hug, his face twisted in a sort of grimacing smile. “Always so thoughtful, aren’t you?”

Not well, then.

“Who’s this, by the way?” I ask when he eventually lets me go, “A fiancé?”

Peter laughs, “No, no, my husband. Deacon,-” the guy looks up from talking to Velma, who seems a little distressed, - “Come meet Daphne Blake, she’s a friend from high school.”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

This time, it’s Fred who screamed, and he screamed his f*cking head off. Both Daphne and I had to cover our ears, but the looming figure, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, was unaffected.

He was at least a foot taller than all of us and had to peer down at us, only adding to his frightening appearance. His dark hair appeared to have been aggressively straightened and slicked back, to the point where it appeared to be more of a single entity rather than a mop of hair. He wore a dark tailored suit with a stark white pocket square.

Fred stopped screaming as though he was turning off a tap and switched back into his cheerful self so fast I got whiplash. “Hi, Emmet!”

The person, “Emmett”, grunted in his direction, but gave no other indication of having heard him.

“You children are trespassing on private property. I must ask you to leave.” he said gently, but insistently.

“Oh, sorry about that sir, we’re friends of Andy, we wanted to drop by and say hi.” Daphne said with a smile.

Emmett raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t friends of his know that Mr Jensen is out of town until seven o’clock today?”

“Oh, well, but … um… “ Daphne seemed to run out of words and excuses.

It is at this point that I notice something, and I get an idea.

“Mr… sir! Do you have a tissue or something?” I said, jerking my hand to hold it close to my face, “I think I might have a nosebleed…”

Emmett handed me his pocket square, which I held pressed against my nose, and further insisted on us leaving, this time warning us to not get blood on the carpet. He, rather forcefully, escorted us to the door.

“Now, whatever you children are up to, you better stop before you get into more serious trouble.” And with that, Emmett closed the front door on us.

We all make our way to Fred’s van so we can talk away from prying eyes and ears.

“So, what now?” Fred asked. “That’s all of our clues exhausted.”

“Not quite.” Both Daphne and I said at the same time, holding up our clues.

After a “You first” “No, you first” exchange, Daphne showed us her clue: the book she had found in the library.

“Daphne!” I couldn’t help but protest, “Did you seriously just steal that?”

“It’s not stealing, just borrowing.” Daphne said with a coy smile, “We can put it back later when we come back.”

“Are we breaking and entering again?” I groaned. Daphne and Fred both give me a look of “yes, of course we are”. Sighing, I asked Daphne to show us what she’d found.

“When I was looking through the pages, I found parts that were highlighted and annotated to death. Look.” Daphne turned to a random page, a rainbow of highlighter and choking with ink from notes in the margins.

“That’s not Andy’s handwriting.” Fred remarked, “His is more illegible than that.”

“Exactly. Also, the notes look like they’re correcting the book: there’s no way Andy would be doing that! He hates this stuff.” Daphne responded, “But that doesn’t really get us any closer to finding Shaggy and Scooby.”

“Well, this might.” I pull the pocket square from my nose, showing it to them.

“There’s no blood?” Fred observed inquiringly. “Is it… magic?”

“No, dummy, I faked it.” I glared at him, he glared right back, “Look closer.”

“Crumbs?” Daphne picked one up, “So what?”

“These are dog treat crumbs, but Jensen doesn’t have a dog. And you, Fred, said Jensen makes his staff live on the grounds. If Emmett has a dog, we would have known about it because we would’ve heard it.” I told them, “I gave Shaggy my last box of dog treats.”

“So, that sounds to me like justification of breaking into Andy’s again?” Fred prompted.

“No, not yet, there’s still a couple questions left.” I shifted in my seat so I can see the house again, “Why did Emmett lie about Jensen not being home, for starters?”

Fred shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe Andy told him to say that? Emmett’s a nice person, he wouldn’t lie to us on purpose if he could help it.”

“And about that, how did _you_ ,-“ I pointed at Fred, - “know that guy’s name was Emmett?”

“I-.” Fred stammered, “I did not come here to be attacked.”

“Answer the question.” Daphne told him sternly. We were both now turned towards Fred, shooting him daggers of suspicion.

“Fine!” Fred throws up his hands in defense, “He used to work for my Dad when I was little. He was the gate keeper, so I would spend a lot of time with him when my Dad was away.”

“And _that’s_ how he greeted you?” I was a little taken aback, “Harsh.”

Fred shrugged, “Emmett’s just like that. Can we get back on topic, please? The weird secret door, _maybe_?”

“Oh, yeah, that was really odd.” Daphne wondered aloud, “Why the heck is it there? Where does it go?”

They both glanced at me inquiringly. “I’m guessing you want me to try and find the floor plan for the Jensen house so we can figure out where the door leads to?”

They both smiled and nodded. At least Daphne added, “Please?”. After agreeing to do so, and that we would meet up in a couple hours, I pulled my notebook from my backpack to make some quick notes, as I had tuned out of whatever Daphne and Fred were talking about (something unrelated to this, it seemed).

There was a knock on the driver’s side window: Emmett. He gestured for us to scram and stayed roadside with his arms crossed until Fred turned on the engine and pulled away from the curb. He kept his eyes on the van until we disappeared around the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> I hope all of you are staying safe, washing your hands, and wearing masks. :)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	18. Chapter 18

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Deacon Benson,” the gentleman says, stretching out his arm to shake my hand, “nice to meet you, Daphne, is it?”

Deacon carries with him an air of grace, so it feels belittling to call him anything other than a gentleman. His haircut is neat and styled perfectly, as though a team of stylists had pit-crewed him this morning. Even though he isn’t wearing a suit, he’s wearing the everyday equivalent of one: dark chinos and a burgundy crewneck, something I wouldn't be surprised to see on the cover of a men's fashion magazine next week. He’s basically Barbie’s Ken, but classier.

How Peter ended up with someone like him, I don’t know.

“Daphne Blake, nice to meet you too.” I glance between Velma and Deacon, who had just been talking together a little away from us, “Do you guys know each other?”

“Yeah, we used to-“ Velma is cut off for the second time in five minutes, something that causes frustration to briefly flash across her face before being quashed by politeness.

“Velma and I are old colleagues, aren’t we?” Deacon, rather roughly, pulls Velma towards him, “How many years ago now? Eight, nine?”

“Nine.” Velma informs him, removing the arm from around her with a look of hidden repulsion on her face. Her behaviour implies there’s something more to the story, but she doesn’t seem to want to divulge further.

"Well, I suppose colleagues might be a stretch,” Deacon continues, “I helped downsize the company Velma here was working for.”

“Actually, Daphne does the same thing you do.” Velma points out, jumping to divert the conversation from herself. “She works for a private equity firm, like you.”

Deacon, his interest piqued, turns to me, “Oh? Who do you work for?”

“Fortress Investment Group,” I tell him, knowing I have a fifty-fifty chance, “Do you work for Alden Global Capital, or…?”

“No, I’m with Fortress, too.” Sh*t. “What branch are you in? I swear I recognise you from somewhere.”

“Uh, … I actually work from home most days, so …” Hoping that keeping it vague will do the trick, which it seems to do as Deacon doesn’t interrogate me further, simply nodding in an understanding, but meaningless, way.

Peter chuckles awkwardly, breaking the momentary silence, “Small world, eh? Who knew our significant others work together?”

I couldn’t help but laugh, causing Peter to give me a curious look, imploring me to explain: “Oh, no, no, Peter, Velma and I aren’t dating, we’re just friends.”

Peter winks and nudges me with his elbow, cooing, “Friends with benefits?”

“ _No_ , Peter.” Velma tells him sternly, “Daphne’s right, we’re just friends.”

There’s a certain bitterness in her tone as she says this last part, barely offset by her joking smile. Right now, Velma is completely unreadable to me. First the thing with Deacon, now this, Velma is going through an emotional rollercoaster, and I’m having a hard time keeping up with everything, let alone comprehending. 

“I’m just saying,-” Peter shrugs,- “you guys would look cute together.”

“Okay, Peter, if you say so,” I say, laughing. Gesturing to the stall, I add “Do you want a coffee, or something? My treat. ”

“No, no, we just wanted to say hi. Thank you for the offer, though.” Peter says, placing a hand on my shoulder, “I really have missed you, Daphne.”

I smile politely but say nothing, and Peter lets his hand drop down to his side.

Taking a deep breath and clapping his hands together, Peter starts his goodbye speech. I see the thespian in him hasn't completely died yet. “Well, you guys are nearly at the top of the queue, and we need to get going -don’t we, Deacon?-,” Peter says, taking Deacon’s hand, “so, it was nice seeing you again. Bye, Daphne, bye, Velma!”

And with that the pair of them were gone, hardly leaving a trace of the fact they’d been here in the first place. Velma sighs, and her façade visibly melts away, her usual cheerful, jolly mask disappearing. I hadn’t really realised until Velma properly let her guard down exactly how exhausted she looked.

“Velma…!” spills out from my mouth before I can swallow it back. 

She blinks, and the mask is back up, “Yeah? Do I have something on my face?”

I sputter, struggling for words that don’t sound too discourteous.

The guy serving us, a lanky tall boy of about nineteen or twenty, coughs loudly, nodding his head towards the growing line behind us. He, who is presumably Emily’s boyfriend, seemed impatient, tapping the counter while giving us a deadpan stare for taking our time to order.

Velma took over, courteously informing him that we’ll have a latte, a cup of black coffee, and herbal tea, even adding “please” at the end of the order, the exhausted face of hers disappearing for good. 

The orders are promptly completed, so we start walking back to the bakery stall with our drinks. 

"Velma, are you alright?" I ask tentatively. "It's just, you looked,..." 

"Tired?" Velma doesn't seem to react very much to this, as though we're just talking about the weather. 

I nod. 

"Starting a bakery is hard work." she says simply. "Especially when…" 

Velma sighs and trails off, her mind seems to wander away from the conversation, distracted. 

"When, what?" I prompt, trying to bring her back to reality and away from whatever she was thinking about. At this point it was genuine concern for the woman, particularly considering the fact that it appears she doesn't have very many people looking out for her. (she was one of those people, y'know, everyone's therapist?) 

"We don't need to discuss this." she says curtly, dismissing the matter altogether. Velma picks up the stride of her walking in order to outpace me.

“But…” Velma was already several strides away, nearly disappearing into the crowd. I start to semi-run to catch up with her, “Wait!”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

We’d agreed to meet in the park not far from the Jensen Manor, so I made my way there where Daphne and Fred had already arrived before me again: apparently Fred had given her a lift because they live close to each other, I don’t know. It took a lot of convincing to get Mum to let me go out “this late at night” (it was seven o’clock), and it would’ve been significantly easier had they come to pick me up, but whatever.

“I’m not sure how to tell you guys this, but,-“ I hand them the floorplans I had borrowed from the council archives, apparently telling the staff I was interested in Italianate architecture was enough to hand me a copy of a century old, privately owned floorplan. This is almost too easy. - “there’s no sign of the secret door on there.”

“Dammit!” Fred cursed. “What do we do now then? That’s our whole plan shot to pieces!”

_Firstly, it was a sh*t plan if it falls apart this easily,_ I thought to myself as I glowered at Fred _, and secondly, who made you the leader?_

“Well, what _does_ it tell us, then?” Daphne asked, “It can’t be _completely_ useless.”

“There is another way we can find out where the tunnel leads to.” I said.

Fred lightly tapped his fist into his palm, having just had a lightbulb moment, “We have to see for ourselves.”

“Exactly!” Maybe Fred isn’t entirely incompetent after all. “We just need to find the key first.”

“We know it’s not in the library, at least, but there’s so many rooms and only three of us.” Daphne pointed out. “And only one map.”

“Luckily, I photocopied extras. You’re welcome, guys.” I pull out a couple from my backpack, handing one to each of them. “Fred, did you bring the walkie talkies I asked you to?”

Fred nodded, and gets back into the van to get them from the glove box.

While he’s out of earshot, Daphne turned to me. “You don’t like him do you?”

“He’s… fine.” I couldn’t really think of much else that was positive, so I left it at that.

“So, no?” Daphne was having none of it: she wanted a straight-forward answer, and she was going to get it.

“No.”

“Why, Velma? Can you not at least give him a chance?” she implored, “He _is_ my childhood best friend.”

“There’s just something _off_ about him.” Daphne gave me a look, prompting me to continue, “But… If you trust him, so will I.”

“Good.”

Fred clambered out of his van, clutching three walkie talkies in his hands. “What were you girls talking about?”

“Nothing much.” Daphne told him, “Are we going in through the kitchen again?”

I shake me head. “There’s two storeys, not including the tower, to if two people separately search each floor, and another searches the tower, we have to enter at different points.”

“I call shotgun on the tower!” Fred proclaimed loudly.

“That’s fine, but keep your voice down!” Daphne scolded him with a hiss. “We don’t want to wake anybody up.”

Fred seemed impassive to this but did at least lower his voice after this.

Once it was decided that Fred will search the tower, Daphne the first floor, and I the second floor, I point out on their floorplans where they need to enter the house. Daphne goes through the kitchen door (“But that’s so boring!”), Fred uses the fire exit (“Sick!”), and I have to scale the scaffolding on one side and shimmy through a small bathroom window (did _not_ sound fun.).

The walkie talkies were tested on the way there, and then it was time to enact the plan.

“Gang, it’s time to split up.” Fred said just before we all headed in.

“Don’t call us a ‘gang’.” Daphne protested, but it fell on deaf ears as Fred had already launched himself into his role.

I shrugged, and so we both headed our separate ways.

Following our entry into the Jensen Manor, we all gave each other whispered updates via the walkie talkies on what we were and weren’t finding. Fred, for the most part, was finding a whole load of nothing. Apparently the tower was mostly empty, we only ever heard from Fred a couple times: once to tell us that he had found plates of untouched food, all starting to rot and stink (it was less informative and more complaining), and another time to inform us that he could hear coughing a little ahead, so he was going to switch off his walkie talkie so as to not alert them to his presence.

Daphne, at least, was searching. She’d made her way through all of the kitchen cabinets (silver- and glassware but not much else) and was starting on the laundry room (a sh*t ton of damp sheets). She also commented on the fact that all the “social” rooms, like the parlour and dressing room, were covered in an inch of dust.

I, meanwhile, started in what I presumed to be the guest bedroom. Although it was fascinating to see the contrast between the architectural style and the mish mash of interior decorating, there was no sign of the key, so I moved on to the next room, which appeared to be a study of some kind.

It was one of the neatest rooms I had come across so far, so it appeared to be in regular use. The study was one of the rooms overlooking the library, so I could see parts of the library from a window behind the desk. The study was basically the library in miniature, with only difference being that the desk in the library seemed to be only used for storage of various knick knacks while the desk in the study was used for its original purpose of being written upon.

The desk was littered with papers and letters, most of which seemed to be addressed from a Tania Jensen, the return address was a different place on each letter. When compared to a map on the wall, I notice that with each different address, there was a coordinating thumbtack in the map marking its place. Andy had clearly been tracking wherever this Tania person had been going with painstaking accuracy.

At this moment, I hear a muffled yelp from down in the library. Glancing down from the window, I see Emmett dragging Fred through the open secret door, the one leading into the tunnel. Fred is frantically flailing his legs about, trying to scream out for help through the fabric of the towel Emmett was holding up against his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far! 
> 
> I hope you're all staying safe, and staying sane, during these... Times.
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	19. Chapter 19

_**Daphne, now:** _

“So, yeah, that’s the plan. The only bit that’s missing is how we’re going to get the tiramisu here safely.” Velma says.

By the time I catch up with her, she had reached the stall and explained the whole situation to Emily while leaning over the counter.

“Zayne has a minifridge in his minivan, I could just borrow it for a bit.” Emily mentions, presumably talking about her boyfriend, “He owes me after I put the solar panels up on the roof.”

“What are you guys talking about? Solar panels?” I ask, approaching the pair of them.

“Zayne put a fridge in his van when we went camping that one time, but the fridge kept draining the car’s battery because he never took care of it properly, so I put solar panels on the roof of his van to fix the issue.” Emily is entirely deadpan as she delivers this knowledge to me.

“The things you can do nowadays, eh, Velma?” I turn to Velma, “We never could’ve done that as kids, least of all Fred.”

“I know, right! Solar panels on roofs, who knew…” Any trace of the argument we’d had only a few hours ago was gone and Velma is fully in productivity mode now. “Emily, do you mind getting the tiramisu and putting it into the van? You can just use my parking pass, here.-”

Velma digs out a tattered purple lanyard from the depths of her backpack and holds it out for Emily. Emily, already texting away, gave her a nod and took the pass from Velma’s hand, “On it.”

The lanyard looks familiar. Velma notices me looking at the lanyard, her eyes darting away with embarrassment when I catch them. After a couple of seconds, Emily’s phone dings, and she’s off on a mission, leaving Velma and I to run the stall again.

Velma, glancing at her watch and checking the crowd around us, pulls up two foldable chairs and a blanket from the supply pile just outside the stall, setting them up just behind the counter. “The first wave of people is over so we can take a little break.”

She gestures for me to sit and hands me my drink. “Thanks.”

She smiles, “You’re welcome.”

For a quiet moment, we sit there, simply sipping away at our drinks. There was a slight breeze under our feet, but nothing the blanket over our laps couldn’t keep out. The winter sun would peer out from behind clouds, illuminating the faire before disappearing again, never offering any sustained warmth. Occasionally, someone would approach the stall, but they never seemed to want to buy anything, so we stayed were we were, languishing in the moment.

“Why did we break up?” Velma asks, breaking the silence.

“Hm?” My brain, which had been wading through thoughts of work, my parents, and upcoming events, had to take a moment to process what Velma had just said.

“We dated for a bit in junior year, but by the time senior prom rolled around, we weren’t together anymore.” she says, staring off into the distance. “Why?”

“Why _did_ we break up?” I wonder aloud, pausing before admitting, “To be honest with you, I cannot for the life of me remember.”

She laughs, “What kind of ex-girlfriend are you? Can’t even remember why we broke up…”

“Hey! It’s not like _you_ remember, you asked me first after all.” I jokingly push her, “It must not have been a very important reason if we’ve both forgotten.”

“I mean, what could’ve it been? We know it’s not something dramatic like someone cheated, because we definitely would’ve remembered that.” Velma ponders, “Well, whatever it was, it clearly doesn’t matter anymore.”

She smiles at me, and there’s just something, _something,_ telling me to hug her. “I like hanging out with you.”

“Me too. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask, “Because, I think we might be.”

“Well, that depends on what you’re thinking.” Velma shifts in her seat to sit up and claps her hands together, “Can I guess?”

I shrug, “Sure.”

Velma (metaphorically) put on her thinking cap. I could practically see the cogs in her brain start up.

“Mm, pizza!” she guesses jokingly.

“No, no, serious guessing.”

“Is it… an abstract concept or a tangible thing?” she asks, hand holding her chin as she thinks.

“I’d say abstract concept.”

“Hm, okay…” she thinks for a couple seconds before guessing, “Is it related to the faire?”

“Kind of?” I say at first, trying to be encouraging, but in the end have to add, “Not really.”

“Gimme a sec,-” Velma pulls out a notebook and pen from her bag, writing down what she had guessed so far, - “Right, okay, is it personal?”

“Yes.”

“For you or for us?” Velma crosses something out from her page as she talks, her face creasing with focus.

“Us.”

There’s a pause, and Velma turns her page around to show me. In big letters, written over and over again, “Lunch?”

I laugh, “No, but we can go get lunch together later if you want.”

“I don’t know, Daphne!” Velma lets the notebook fall into her lap and slumps back into the back of her chair, “Can’t you just tell me?”

“I like y-“

_**Velma, 1994:** _

_Sh*t sh*t sh*t this is bad sh*t._

I ducked down, away from the window, and crawled under the desk, just in case.

“Daphne!” I hissed into the walkie talkie, not waiting for an answer, “Emmett’s got Fred, you’ve got to hide while he’s in the tunnel!”

“Wait, what?” came the response, “What do you mean they got Fred?”

“Just hide, Daph, okay? I don’t know how long we’ve got before he comes back, so I’ll explain everything later.” I can hear some scrambling and shuffling on the other side, “Daphne? Where are you?”

“I’m just in a hallway closet, where are you?” Daphne said, her voice slightly muffled, “Wait, shush, I hear someone.”

Sure enough, I could hear some heavy footsteps approaching through the static of the walkie talkie. They paused just outside of where Daphne was hiding, and I could practically hear both Daphne’s and my own heartbeats speed up as the pause drags on and on, I could visualise then, Emmett, ever so slowly reaching out to open the closet door and taking Daphne away, too.

“Emmett?” a voice called from what seemed to be the end of the corridor, “Did you..?”

“Yes, the boy is with the others.” Emmett replied to Jensen, “Should you not be in bed, sir? It is getting quite late now.”

“Never mind that. When are the tests arriving?” Jensen implored, his voice distorting as he yawned, “Soon, I hope.”

“I shall fetch them personally in the morning.” Emmett’s voice was slightly different from when he was talking to us, a little softer, more caring, I suppose.

“Hm. You mentioned the boy came with some friends earlier?” Jensen’s voice, when I think about it, wasn’t as frail as I was expecting. It didn’t falter, even when he was fatigued, and seemed actually rather brassy.

“They’ll be taken care of within the half hour, sir.” Emmett replied, “If not, I’ll lock the gates so they can be found in the morning.”

“Good, you’re dismissed.”

I could hear the sound of footsteps fading away, Jensen presumably to his bedroom and Emmett to search for us.

“Velma, did you hear all of that?” Daphne frantically whispered into the walkie talkie, “We’ve got to find the guys within thirty minutes, or we’re going to be stuck here for the night!”

“Yes! I heard. We’ve got to find the key first, okay?” I tried to tell her as reassuringly as possible, “Emmett said he took Fred to “the others”, that can only be Shaggy and Scooby.”

“Right, okay, let me know if you find it, or get any trouble, okay?” I could hear Daphne open the closet door and step out into the hallway.

“I will.” I could hear footsteps walking down the hallway outside, so I lowered my voice to add, “Be careful.”

Just in case, I decided to find a better hiding spot than simply under the desk (the window seat was hollow so I stuffed myself best I could into the small space), which was just in time as Jensen walked into the room precisely as I shut the seat in on myself. I could still peep into the room thanks to a gap between the lid and the seat, however, so I did not miss Jensen walk towards his desk, open the upper left-most compartment, and slip the key we had seen him holding earlier into the compartment.

I stifled a gasp and cover my mouth to prevent any more sound coming out.

Jensen briefly glanced behind him but shook his head after a second of staring in my direction. He shuffled out of the room, his footsteps disappearing into the bedroom the furthest down the hall.

I waited for what felt like forever before deciding it was safe to clamber out and digging the key out of the compartment.

“Daphne!” I called into the walkie talkie, “I found the key, can you meet me in the library?”

“I’ll be right there.”

I can’t remember much of the journey to the library, as it was relatively uneventful, but the journey down the tunnel was certainly more memorable.

I handed Daphne the key as she was already standing in front of the book, but she hesitated before turning it. Glancing at her, I observed her hand shaking, possibly with fear. In order to reassure her, and to move things along before we run out of time, I place my hand on hers and we turn the key together.

The door fell open, revealing the tunnel behind it. I let my hand fall and Daphne takes the key from the fake book, dropping it into the pocket of her shirt.

The tunnel before us was dark and seemed to stretch far beyond what we could see. There was an almost inaudible drip-drip-drip of water hitting rock, accompanied with the smell of salt that lingered in the air.

When we stepped through, there was a distinctly unpleasant squelch under our feet: some algae growing on the small ledge. Daphne, who had been startled by the sound, grasped my hand once again and did not let go.

I happened to have a small key chain flashlight, which we used to help us inch our way down the tunnel, despite it not illuminating not much further than a metre or so ahead.

Time crawled as we sluggishly, ever so slowly, edged our way down the winding tunnel. The flashlight, already dim, was getting weaker by the second. It wasn’t a large tunnel, we had to stoop slightly to avoid brushing the ceiling and huddle together a little so as to not bump the walls. About halfway through, out flashlight stopped working altogether, forcing us to feel our way down the tunnel with our hands, sending chills down our backs thanks to the cool dampness of the walls.

Finally, finally, we came across another door: light shone from under the door and we could hear hushed voices inside. The voices became silent as we approached.

“Shaggy? Scooby? Fred?” Daphne called out, knocking on the door, “Are you guys there? It’s us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> Is it a bad idea to start a business of making MAGA masks in order to get Trump supporters to wear a mask? Maybe if it expressed their (flawed) ideology, they wouldn't complain about "infringement of freedoms"... (Obviously I would donate all profits to BLM and LGBTQ+ organisations)
> 
> I don't know. See you guys all next Sunday!  
> -MoonRenegade


	20. Chapter 20

_**Daphne, now:** _

“I like y-” I’m interrupted by Emily, who appears from around the corner, lightly jogging with car keys and a ticket stub in her hand.

“Done.” she says simply, dropping the ticket stub into Velma’s hand, “The cake’s pretty.”

“It’s a tiramisu,-” Velma corrects her, - “and thank you.”

“No problem.” Emily seems to flush a little, as though she isn’t used to praise, “Also, on the way here, I saw them setting up for the Bake Off, and jeez, Velma you have to see it.”

“Why?” Velma queries, “Is it magic or something?”

“No, just Christy got a perfect replica of the Bake Off tent made.” Emily is practically bouncing as she tells us this, “It’s brilliant!”

“Emily and I watch Bake Off together,” Velma explains to me, “Should we go check it out then?”

She’s beaming from ear to ear, and it’s clear if I refuse I’m just going to be left here in this stall with Emily, who I hardly know, so I decide, _why not?_

The tent, more of a marquee, really, was a humongous white tent seeming to compose of two parts: one small section at the front for an entrance, and a larger part which is presumably the baking part. The counters, pale mint green and blue, all have matching appliances, two of which have ingredients pre-prepared on the surfaces.

“Woah, this looks cool as -.” I start to say as a shadow looms over both Velma and I peering into the tent from the plastic sheet windows. Pausing and glancing up reveals Christy Henderson in all her five-foot seven glory. She’s smirking, barely concealing the pure glee under the surface.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, clearly not meaning a word of it, “-but I just saw you glancing in and say hello.”

“Hi, Christy.” Velma smiles at her, genuinely, it seems, “This is a really good replica of the Bake Off tent, did you get it custom made or something?”

Christy bursts out laughing, “Replica? Ah, Velma, you’re so cute, no. This is the real thing. No expense spared.”

Velma’s posture immediately straightens as she starts the stroke the exterior of the tent, eyes full of wonder (she looks like she’s going to cry), “The real thing…”

“Hm, yeah, it is.” Christy smugly pulls out a copy of the leaflet from earlier and presents it to us, “I just wanted to double check, are you guys ready for this?”

She’s clearly expecting us to be shocked, or at least a little upset, but neither of us showed as much as a flinch, Velma was in fact still totally infatuated with the tent. Startled, Christy takes a tiny step back, wearing a look of perplexation on her face.

“Firstly, it’s illegal to force someone into a competition without their consent, not even mentioning the fact that you gave yourself a huge advantage by not giving Velma enough time to even prepare.” I inform Christy, “Also, Karen told us a couple hours ago.”

Christy scowls and curses under her breath, “Damn my drunken self, always so boastful.”

_You’re boastful even when you’re sober._

“That means I’ll just have to beat you in the skills section, then?” Velma poses, “In that case, I can only tell you to do your best, but I’ll beat you anyway.”

“Oh?” Christy mocks surprise, ( _sh*t_ ) “You thought _I_ would be doing the baking? Ha!”

“You won’t be?” I blink in surprise. “Then who…?”

“Master baker,…” Christy pauses to laugh, “-yeah, I know how that sounds-, master baker Don Santiago is going to be competing for me. I would never risk breaking a nail.”

My jaw can’t help but drop. “Santiago?”

“The one and only.” Christy tells me smugly.

“Who?” Velma asks, her head ping ponging between me and Christy, “Is this another pop culture thing I’m missing?”

“No, no, Santiago is the head baker of The Two Little Red Hens Bakery in New York.” I say to Velma, “The customer service is terrible, but the cheesecake is _to die for_.”

Christy, who had been basking in her supposed mystique, sniffs indignantly and turns back to us, “Well then, we’ll just have to see who wins, won’t we? Your business is on the line, Velma, you won’t want to mess this up…”

Christy tries to strut away, but her inordinate heels were no match for the uneven grassy surface of the town square, so she stumbles. Despite this, a few steps later, Christy returns to hammer her pint home, or to attack us yet again.

“Daphne, so this is why you turned my business proposition down, hm?” Why Christy couldn’t just leave after the last bit is beyond me. If this was a story, or heaven forbid a decently written fanfic, Christy would’ve left after that past quip. “Because you’re pal-y pal-y with my one and only rival?”

“I’d hardly call us rivals, Christy-.” Velma tries to inject, attempting (and failing) to defuse Christy’s tiny tirade.

“It would be a conflict of interest, sure, but I chose not to work with you because _I don’t want to work with you_. I am an adult on vacation, and _I_ choose who I work for, not my Dad. Christy, I don’t care what deal you struck up with him: I don’t want anything to do with it, okay?”

“But-”

“No ‘buts’. Can you please just leave us alone now, please?” I gesture for her to scram like a parent to a child, “I’m going to see you in twenty minutes, or so, anyway, so shouldn’t you go get ready for the competition?”

Christy pouts at me but does turn around and disappears.

“You didn’t have to be so harsh on her.” Velma says as she pulls out her phone to take photos of the tent.

“She was being mean to you.”

Velma shoots me a look, I can’t really describe it, kind of bemusement and disappointment mixed together. “You and I both know that getting into that argument was ridiculous. Even if you had a point.”

“Yeah, I know.” I say with a sigh, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you need to apologise to!” Velma chuckles, “You can say sorry to her later, what were you trying to say earlier?”

“Oh,” I shrug dismissively, “it doesn’t matter.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. Do you want a picture of you with the tent?”

_ **Velma, 1994:** _

There was a slight pause before we heard a reply. “Daphne? Velma?”

It sounded like Fred, so we tried to open the door. Unfortunately, it was locked shut, and no amount of slamming into it from either side could open it, despite the rotting wood that consisted of the door. The key that opened the tunnel door didn’t open the door either no matter how much we jiggled it around in the lock. 

“Are you guys alright in there?” Daphne called out after a few moments of futile attempts, “There isn’t any impending danger, is there?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Shaggy called back, his voice muffled by the thick door in between us. “There’s the ghost but,…”

“But?” she prompted. While this conversation was going on, I started looking for ways to open the door.

The door, which, as previously mentioned, was made of quite old rotting wood, had a pretty standard lock recently fitted to the it (just above where a simple latch had been), thankfully one with a spring bolt and not a deadbolt else this would be a lot harder. Now all I had to do was find was something I could pick the lock with.

“Fred’s insisting they’re not real.” I could practically see Shaggy mocking Fred now on the other side of the door as he spoke. “Why don’t you tell them what you told Scooby and I.”

Fred and Shaggy kept bickering between themselves, so I turned to Daphne to ask if she had a bobby pin or something of the like to pick the lock with. She stared at me as though she was saying ‘why the hell _wouldn’t_ I have a bobby pin’. She handed me a purple pin, rolling her eyes at the argument happening on the other side of the door. I got to work on the lock.

“Why should I, it was meant to be a secret just between us.” Fred protested loudly.

“Traitor!” Scooby barked at him, “Scooby doesn’t want to lie for roo anymore.”

“You haven’t been lying at all for me at all, you only found out twenty minutes ago!”

“Guys?” Daphne say, trying to keep a cool head throughout this sort of argument, “What’s going on in there?”

I heard a click from the lock and turned the bobby pin. 

“Fred-” Shaggy starts as the door falls open, revealing him and Scooby pointing accusingly at Fred, - “staged the entirety of the last mystery in order to impress his Dad’s guest.”

The silence following this was palpable. You could hear a pin drop, mostly because one did.

The room Fred, Shaggy and Scooby were being held in was surprisingly cosy. It had clearly been someone’s bedroom at some point in time. It was a semi-underground cabin with a window to the sea hidden behind some vegetation near the roof. There was a double bed with the sheets disturbed, presumably Fred and Shaggy had been sharing it, and a new looking dog bed on the floor next to it. An old rug lay on the floor, slightly dirty, but mostly in good condition. There’s a weird shape beneath it. The door we had just opened was actually the back wall of a battered looking empty closet next to a desk under the window.

“You did _what_?” Daphne was in a rage, she brushed me to the side in order to stomp over to Fred, who visibly quivered as she approached.

“IstagedthelastmysterytoimpressmyDad’sguestinordertogetmyfather’srespect.” Fred flinched away from her, as though scared she was going to punch him.

Daphne, did, in fact, raise her hand to slap him, but sighed and dropped it after holding it up for a few seconds. “You lost the right to be slapped.”

“That’s a right?” Shaggy asked quietly into Scooby’s ear.

Before anyone could say anything in response, there was a loud wail from the closet door. Scooby, of course, jumps into Shaggy’s arms and the pair scramble to hide under the bed, while Fred screams, joining them. 

"This conversation isn't over." Daphne told the space under the bed before calmly crawling under the blankets as though going to take a nap. 

“Velma, what are you doing?” Shaggy yelps at me, “Hide!”

I shook my head and glanced at the rug again. I _had_ to know.

With a couple taps of my feet, I noticed that the floor itself is uneven, and it wasn't just something hidden under the rug. I started rolling the rug up to reveal a trapdoor in the floor. Gesturing for the others to join me, I attempt to open it. Daphne is the first to come help me, and the others only joined once a dark hole had been revealed in the middle of the room. 

“We don’t have a way of telling how deep that goes.” Fred pointed out, “Is it worth it?”

"We should probably drop something down there to see how deep this goes." I suggested, glancing around for something to let fall into the hole. 

By the time I turned back around with a pen in my hand, Daphne was sitting in the edge of the trapdoor.

Daphne shrugged in response to Fred’s curious stare and shimmied forwards, so she was holding herself up with her hands above the hole, “I don’t want to get trapped here, so screw it, byeee.”

She vanished down into the hole, quickly succeeded by a small splash and a gasp. “It’s cold!”

The wail comes again, prompting the rest of us to follow her out of fear.

The trapdoor seems to be the only thing that had been concealing a hole down into an underground river in the cliff the Jensen Mansion stood upon. It’s too dark to see much other than the person in front of me, but far off in the distance I could see light. We all joined hands so none of us slipped of got carried away by the current in the darkness, and made our way slowly towards the light, hoping the source of the wails didn’t catch up with us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> I might be taking a break next week, depending on the circumstances, so we'll see what happens. Apologies in advance if the chapter is late.
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	21. Chapter 21

_**Daphne, now:** _

It’s ten to three when we’re approached by four people. The youngest is an eccentric man in his late forties, he’s basically the poster boy for a 90s goth or rock band: shoulder length dark hair and “satanic” clothing, as my mother would describe it. The second man is a little older, mid-fifties or so, and seems to be a baker, through and through. I wouldn’t be surprised if baking ran in his blood. I vaguely recognised one of the women, and something about her made me feel comfortable in her presence. The older woman, eighties or so, is wearing a brightly coloured pair of glasses that matches her spiky, leather necklace that commandeered my attention. She seems fun.

Velma almost screamed when she saw them. It took her a moment, and a couple deep breaths, to compose herself.

“Hello,” the younger man says, “Are you Velma Dinkley?”

Velma nods frantically, “Y-…Yes! Yes, I am. It’s so nice to meet you Mr Hollywood.” Velma shakes his extended hand before querying, “Why are _you_ here, though?”

“Just call me Paul, Velma.” he laughs, “A certain Mr Henderson, I believe the father of your competitor, paid a large sum of money to the network to have us fly here with the tent.”

“Is that not biasing the judges a little?” I ask, “Surely that counts as collusion.”

Paul shrugs, “We haven’t received a penny yet, plus I think I speak for all of us when I say I wish they’d have given us some warning instead of whisking us away from our families during Christmas.”

The others murmured their agreement. One of the women, the shorter of the two, is particularly annoyed about this, her expression briefly flaring into anger before settling into a welcoming smile again.

“We’ll be fair to both competitors, basically.” the older woman turns to me, “And who are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m Daphne, Velma’s … friend?” I glance to Velma for confirmation, she nods at me.

“Yep, she’s my friend! She doesn’t watch the show, though, so, em, do you mind if I just…?”

She trails off, and they all nod or shrug, motioning for her to do what she needs to.

“Okay, this person,-” she gestures to one of the women, the younger one, - “is Sandi Toksvig, she’s lovely. And the guy behind her,” the youngest man waves, “is Noel Fielding, who is hilarious. Paul you know as we were just talking, and this,-” the oldest smiles at me amicably, “is Prue Leith. Sandi and Noel are presenters while Paul and Prue are the judges of the show.”

Prue, seemingly pleased with how things were unfolding, asks “Well, now that introductions are out of the way, should we discuss the competition?”

Velma nods. She appears simultaneously nervous and excited, she’s jittery and I can see her hands clenching and unclenching out of sync with each other behind her back and she’s barely holding herself back from jumping up and down in excitement.

“As you know, we typically have three challenges per episode, but due to time constraints we’ve asked you to prepare your showstoppers ahead of time, correct?” Noel asks Velma, who nods.

“Emily, my assistant, is keeping it in a minifridge in her van nearby.” she informs them.

“Oh, if you want, we could keep it safe in the tent as we’ve got fridges in there?” Sandi suggests, “Christy’s doing that, so I don’t see why you couldn’t.”

“I’ll tell Emily to bring it to the tent, then.” Velma nods seriously.

“Great!” Prue exclaims, “Obviously, we can’t tell you about the other two challenges just yet, but don’t worry about the technical, it’s a small straight forward thing just for the formality in order to save time. Focus on the signature bake, as that’s what we’ll be judging the most.”

“We look forward to seeing what you make for us.” Paul says, smiling.

The four of them go through the pleasantries of goodbye and turn back into the tent.

Velma checks her phone for the time, five to. She’s trying to conceal it, but I notice the slight tensing and untensing of her jaw.

“It’s going to be okay,” I try to reassure her, “I’m sure you’ll blow the competition out of the water.”

She smiles weakly. “Sure.”

“You don’t believe me?” I ask her, “But you’re great at baking…”

“I heard you and Christy talking about the other person, Don Santiago, and if they’re that good, I don’t stand a chance, do I?” Velma sighs, any last remaining trace of hope exiting with the sigh.

I place a hand on her shoulder, “Hey, no, that’s not true. Look around you.”

Velma raises her head and glances around at the crowd of people milling about staring at the tent. There’s a large crowd outside one of the other tents nearby (the one open for the public to watch the competition from without disturbing the competitors) waiting for the competition to start. I notice her eyelashes are sticking together due to the dampness that she blinks away before they spill forth.

“Who do you think all these people are here to watch?” I ask her, “They don’t care about some posh toff from New York, they’re here to see you.”

“But-.”

“No buts, this is your competition to win. They-, _we_ all believe in you.” I pull her into a hug, “Give it your all, okay?”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

We’re wading through the water, clasping tightly to each other’s hands. On and on. Daphne glanced back at us, checking we’re all still here. We are. On and on. The water was getting gradually deeper: it had started at waist height but was inching upwards until we were struggling to keep our chins dry and Scooby was having to doggie paddle while holding onto Shaggy. On and on. There was a sudden drop in the floor of the underwater river, submerging us all entirely under water. We kicked desperately, to reach the surface, sputtering and coughing as we do so. On and on. The end on the tunnel is creeping closer, ever so slowly.

As the light gets closer, the water level sank and the river widened, until we were simply ankle deep in water and at the mouth of the river. Moonlight bathed us as we exited the tunnel, the sand of the cove glistening silver. We collapsed onto said sand and let go of each other’s hands. We were exhausted and freezing, but relieved to have finally made it out of there.

Shaggy raised a limp fist of triumph before dropping it with a “platch” onto his soaked clothing. Scooby scooted closer to Shaggy and promptly fell asleep with his head on Shaggy’s stomach. Fred got to work wringing the water out of his clothing. Daphne moved closer to me and listened as I pointed out constellations to her.

I took her hand and traced Orion’s shape so she could see him better. “He’s the hunter.”

“Oh, I see him now…” Daphne let her hand fall, but didn’t let go of my hand. There was a slight pause before she asked, “Did anyone close the trapdoor or put the rug back after we left?”

_Sh*t._

Before anyone can think, a shadow appears above my head. Daphne screamed and scrambled up and away, dragging me with her. Scooby stirred from his nap, and Fred and Shaggy joined us as we tried to run from the figure. It’s difficult running in sand and the figure makes quick work of us, trapping us between them and the sea.

The figure was wearing a ghost mask and a billowing robe than fluttered in the sea breeze behind them. This was clearly a fake costume, but it was understandable that from a distance someone might mistake this for an actual ghost. Question now was, who’s behind the mask?

Daphne pushed us all behind her protectively, but Fred elbowed his way in front of her.

“What do you want from us?” Daphne called out to the figure, her voice trembling slightly “Please don’t kill us.”

“Yeah!” chorused Fred. “What do you want from us?”

The figure took a step forward, prompting Shaggy to start screaming. Fred joined him a second later as Scooby howled at the moon for help. The figure put out their hands in a sort of panic to demonstrate they meant no harm. They paused in their tracks to pull the mask off.

“Kids!” the figure said, “Calm down, it’s just me.”

It’s Emmett.

He tucked the mask under his arm and slowly approached us with his hands still up.

“See? I’m not going to-“ Emmett laughed, - “kill you.”

Fred stopped screaming to say simply, “Oh?”

“I though I told you guys to stay in the room?” Emmet asked the guys, “Shaggy and Scooby, you two especially.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Daphne asked for the both of us, “Could someone fill us in, _please_?”

“I’m not the best person to explain that to you,” Emmett said as he pulled out a pager from under the robes and fiddled with it for a moment. It beeped its response. “So, I’m going to take you back up to the house, if that’s okay with you all?”

Fred stepped forwards, extending his smallest finger towards Emmett with a serious look on his face. “Pinky promise?”

Emmett smiled and obliged. “Pinky promise.”

Emmett turned around and gestured for us to follow him. The sudden switch of Emmett’s personality from frightening guard to helpful friend left me feeling incredibly suspicious, but there was nothing I could do to alleviate that suspicion. He lead us up a steep path in the cliff that was more stairs then path.

The house was still dark and looming over the cliff, but I notice something I hadn’t noticed before, there’s two lights on, despite the only one of two people we know could be in the house is here with us. Someone must’ve left a light on and wasting electricity. One of the lights on was the top window of the tower and the other was a room on the second floor.

Without saying a word, Emmett leads us through the house to the second-floor hallway where Jensen is waiting for us.

“So, you lot are the kids who have been sneaking around my house in the early hours of the night?” Jensen asked us, not waiting for us to reply before adding, “Are you all up to date on your shots?”

I nodded and glanced around at the others who also nodded. Shaggy and Scooby, however, shook their heads.

“I already know you two don’t.” Jensen reassured them, “You two are the reason behind this whole mess, how could I _not_ know.”

Jensen then lead the way up the tower. The sound of coughing got louder, and it became clear Jensen and Emmett weren’t the only residents of the house.

The third resident at first appeared to only be a bundle of blankets on a double bed, the room lit solely by hundreds of tiny flickering candles. The blanket bundle shifted as they heard us enter the room. Jensen approached the bundle and extracted an extremely emancipated looking woman from its depths. When she coughed, her entire body shook with the force and blood sprayed the bedsheets.

“Tania, we’ve got some guests today, would you like to say hello?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that apparently I can write despite increasing responsibilities! The trick was to just procrastinate fulfilling those responsibilities by writing. (:
> 
> ~Ooohhhhhh the mystery is unravelling~ Who's Tania? Why the heck would you kidnap children? Are Shaggy and Scooby still hungry?? 
> 
> Also, I've noticed I just the word "before" a ton in my writing. Any suggestions for alternatives is welcome!
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	22. Chapter 22

_**Daphne, now:** _

With the competition minutes away from starting, Velma was whisked away by the production team to “prep her”. If I know anything, that’ll probably be getting some light make up for the cameras and mounting lavalier mics. God knows those things are a nightmare to do yourself, especially for the first time.

I was just about to enter the second largest tent, the viewing tent, when a production assistant approached me with a clipboard in hand. He checks the clipboard before asking, “Are you Daphne Blake?”

When I nod, he gestures for me to follow him.

“I was told to bring you to the production tent. Family and friends, or something like that.” he explains as he leads me to said production tent, “Thank goodness you’re the only person on my list, I saw Vicky’s list from the other competitor, and oh boy, I swear it’s thicker than the Bible.”

I laugh, “That adds up with everything I know about Christy. Weird that Velma only put me down, would have figured she’d at least invite her mother.”

The PA shrugs. He opens the tent flap and lets me in. He doesn’t follow and disappears almost instantaneously as the tent flap falls closed.

The tent is bustling with activity, the hum of voices over the whirring of the various monitors on the far side of the tent. There’s one large one in the centre, presumably showing what the public see in the viewing tent, currently simply displaying what I assume is the Great British Bake-Off logo and a countdown. The rest of the monitors appear to be showing various camera viewpoints: one on each counter, one on the viewing tent to gauge reactions, and a couple other, presumably hand-held cameras, pointing at the ground or flat surfaces. One of the monitors shows Velma, talking to the director while someone mics her up.

She seems a little nervous, but when the conversation with the director ends, she glances around at the tent with the same open-mouthed wonder I had seen earlier. She approaches each counter, opening and closing the cabinets to see inside, stroking the edge of the surfaces, that kind of thing. I smile, knowing how excited she must be given her excitement earlier. She’s hiding it well, however.

Christy, a smug look situating itself firmly on her face like a leech, enters the tent with Don Santiago. Don is in their thirties and stands about an inch shorter than Christy with her heels on. They’re a little on the chubby side of portly, but they’re more teddy bear than fearsome competitor.

Velma smiles and waves at the two of them politely. Christy clip-clops over to Velma and whispers something to Velma. As the audio had yet to be fully prepped, I had no way of knowing what Christy had said to Velma, but it clearly wasn’t very pleasant as Velma’s face dropped.

I want so much to hug her and tell her it’s going to be okay. I also want to claw Christy’s eyes out for piling it on after everything, but I can’t do that either.

Don, on the other hand, could. They place a hand gently on Velma’s shoulder, and even I can tell that they’re asking, “are you alright?”. Velma nods, but her smile doesn’t return.

There’s no time left to ask further as the bell goes, signalling that it’s thirty seconds until lights up.

All the non-essential people exit the marquee, joining the rest of us here in the production tent. Christy, however, doesn’t enter the production tent. I had seen her leave the marquee, but not where she had gone from there. An unsettling feeling was starting to spread.

The red light positioned above the monitors labelled “On your marks, get set… bake!” lights up, and the show begins.

“Welcome bakers!” Sandi announces cheerfully into the camera, “Today’s episode will be rather unusual today as we seem to be breaking more than a couple rules.”

“That’s right, Sandi, firstly, we’ve got a live audience -say hello live audience-,” there’s a faint cheer as Noel says this, - “and secondly we have two _professional_ bakers with us today, not two amateurs. Would you like to introduce yourselves, professional bakers?”

Noel gestures for Velma to introduce herself first. Velma waves shyly at the camera, before remembering she has to actually speak. “Hi, I’m Velma Dinkley and I run a bakery here in Crystal Cove, where I’ve lived for most of my adult life.”

Don introduces themselves promptly, not letting the atmosphere cool to a point of awkwardness (he’s clearly a little better at camera work than Velma is), “Hello everyone, I’m Don Santiago. I’m a New York baker working at Two Little Red Hens, and um… I’m a Capricorn, I guess?”

Their smile suggests this end part was choreographed, but whether by the producer or Christy is unclear.

Sandi laughs, “At least you’re not a Gemini, like Noel here is.”

“Hey!” Noel protests, grinning, “At least I’m not mistaken for a garden gnome at a tea party.”

“Speaking of tea parties…” Sandi switches to a slightly more serious tone, “On both of your counters you will find a card, you may flip it over now. All the ingredients you will need are here on the table and you have forty minutes. On your marks, get set… bake!”

Someone in the production team presses one of the thousands of buttons on the control panel under the wall of monitors and a voice recording plays. It’s clear Velma and Don can’t hear what’s being said as neither react to it.

“Today, our bakers will be making the traditional British cheese scone for their technical challenge, a tea party essential. Are the bakers up to the challenge? Only time will tell…”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

“Tania, we’ve got some guests today, would you like to say hello?” Andy prompts her. She’s clearly very weak: she had to lean entirely on Andy to remain upright and struggled to lift a limp hand to wave to us.

A small croaky voice faintly uttered a hello before descending into a coughing fit. Andy lowered her back down gently into the bed, dabbed her forehead with a damp cloth, and covered her with blankets again.

“Tania is my little sister, my junior by about five years, so I have always been protective of her.” Andy told us in a hushed tone, leading us away from the doorway and into the corridor.

Shaggy nodded and added in a sincere tone, “I do the same for my two younger siblings.”

Scooby shot him a look of confusion. It seemed that they had different definitions of the word “protect” in mind…

“She loved to travel, our Tania, and every time she went somewhere new I insisted she wrote to me, so I knew she was safe, and she would tell me about the things she’s seen and learned, like the crystal healing. She usually sent little trinkets with her letters, you kids have seen some of them, haven’t you? I recall my desk in the library being a bit of a mess this afternoon…”

Daphne blushed, “Sorry, I thought I had tidied everything away. Also sorry for trespassing.”

Andy dismissed the apologies with a wave of his hand, “Nonsense, I was a child, once, too, I understand the pull of curiosity. Tania certainly had the urge, that’s for sure. I made her come home for Christmas and Thanksgiving, though, because family is important.”

Emmett, noticing Andy leaning more and more heavily on the cane in his hand, ushered us into the room next door. It was a hybrid room: part sitting room, part guest suite. Andy made himself comfortable in one of the armchairs while Emmett remained stoic and upright just over his right shoulder.

Andy sent Emmett off on a task with a whisper just quiet enough for us to not be able to hear it. He gestured for the rest of us remaining in the room to sit down. Daphne sat on the bed with Shaggy while Scooby sat at their feet and promptly fell asleep. Fred settled on the floor next to Scooby with his back leaning on the side of the bed. I decided on one of the other armchairs.

From there, Andy told us everything: Tania had come to visit for Christmas a couple years ago with what they at first thought was just a cold or the flu, but actually turned out to be tuberculosis, or TB. Andy decided that while she got better, she should stay with him as she had no-one who could take care of her at her own home.

“The doctor said she would get better quite quickly if she took some antibiotics, but she refused, over and over again.” Andy sighed, “Nothing I said could make her take them. I tried hiding them in her food, but she had no appetite.”

The TB got worse, he told us, and he took Tania to the hospital where she seemed to be getting better, but she discharged herself from the hospital prematurely, insisting her crystals at home would heal her. She returned to the Jensen Mansion and, in a delirious state, threw many of her precious crystals at the staff and walls, breaking many of them.

“It was then that I realised I couldn’t keep putting my staff in such a dangerous situations, even if Tania’s outburst was a one-off.” Andy seemed exhausted as he recounted his tale, as though speaking about the events was putting him back in them, “Almost all of my staff live with their families here, in Crystal Cove, what if there’s a TB outbreak just because I wasn’t careful about protecting my staff?”

Andy told us about how he had to send away all of his staff, excluding Emmett, who lived alone. He added, however, that he continued to pay everyone’s wages despite them no longer working for him as it was not their fault they had to be sent away. In recent years, local teens captured by the mystery of the Jensen household had tried to find a way in through a secret tunnel. The bedroom the guys were being held in had been constructed for Emmett to live in after some people had broken into his home looking to solve the mystery.

“After I found these two,-“ Andy gestured to Shaggy and Scooby, - “loitering near Tania’s room, I had to isolate them to make sure they hadn’t caught TB, I just couldn’t risk it. In my day, many people were lost to this horrible infection, my own little sister is a shell of her former full-of-life self because of it, and I couldn’t bear the thought of putting more people at risk.”

“But, shouldn’t you have let someone know?” I asked him, “Technically, this is abduction, right? When we talked to Shaggy’s mother, she didn’t seem to know what was going on…”

“She should have known.” Jensen looked confused, “I called her at one o’clock, not long after I found these two.”

“Ah,” Daphne said, “We talked to her an hour before that.”

“Well!” Emmett, who had appeared out of nowhere with a tray of hot cocoa in his arms, exclaimed in a tone suggesting we better finish up, “That’s the mystery solved, isn’t it?”

“But, why did you pretend to be a ghost?” Shaggy asked Emmett, “We still haven’t figured that out yet.”

Emmett laughed, “I just wanted to make sure people like you didn’t hang around the caves. The tide goes up really quickly, so it can be dangerous.”

“Is that everything then?” Andy asked, although it was clear he wanted no more conversations. “Because if so, I need to arrange for you to be isolated until we can all you get tested tomorrow morning.”

Shaggy groaned. “But I’m hungry!”

Andy, ignoring his protest, also gestured at Fred, Daphne, and me, “And I need your parents’ numbers so I can let them know what the hell you are all doing at this late hour. Wouldn’t want to worry them, would you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone catch those breadcrumbs I sprinkled throughout the last few chapters? Not enough/too much?  
> There's more mysteries to come, of course, they've got a couple years worth of mystery solving left in them, so feedback and response is always appreciated. :)
> 
> My favourite video of the week because it's hecking adorable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97bAfcl6g1c
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	23. Chapter 23

**_Daphne, now:_ **

“Today, our bakers will be making the traditional British cheese scone for their technical challenge, a tea party essential. Are the bakers up to the challenge? Only time will tell…”

One of the handheld cameras shows us the card both Velma and Don had flipped over. There were very few instructions, only two or three steps, and even those are very minimal in their description. Nevertheless, the pair get started almost immediately.

Don, with the grace of a dancer, turns the oven on to a neat three sixty degrees and pulls out a large bowl from under the counter. Velma had also pulled put a bowl and started sifting in ingredients in this time, when she realises she had forgotten to preheat the oven. She does so, placing a large baking tray inside before closing it shut and resuming her sifting.

The pair are like synchronised swimmers: both do add butter and rub it into their mixture in sync, as though they’re hearing music we cannot hear. Even the bowls of grated cheese get added in perfect synchrony. Velma stops rubbing on the butter first, Don looks up in surprise, and pours some milk into the centre of a well she had created in the mixture. Don does the same just moments later, rushing slightly to keep up. They actually overtake Velma on the speed front by doing this, so they spend a little longer forming their scones into the perfect size and shape.

“Five minutes until they need to go into the oven!” Sandi calls out.

“We’re really making America ‘grate’ again, aren’t we?” Noel says with a smirk.

“Ooh! I forgot we could do cheese puns today, give me a second to think of something…” Sandi replies, “Anything you can do, I can do feta.”

“Are you challenging me, Sandi?” Noel asks, “I don’t want to have to make you my arch neme-swiss…”

“Enough with the cheese puns now, this is a _serious competition_ , after all.” Sandi attempts to bring the tone back to a more critical note, “What’s your hypothe-swiss about the outcome, Noel?”

“I’m not sure, Sandi, these two are both very capable bakers, I think they know what they’re doing.” Noel answers, “It’ll be interesting to see how they both do.”

I was expecting them to approach Don and Velma to do interviews while they were busy mixing and preparing the scones to go into the oven, but they only do so once the scones _are_ all in the oven.

Don finishes first, so they get interviewed first.

“Hi, Don!” Noel says cheerfully, “How are your scones coming along?”

“Pretty good, I think.” they reply, “I’ve never made traditional scones before, but I hear they’re similar to our biscuits, right?”

“That’s right, although British scones typically tend to be a little sweeter.” Sandi informs them, “So why did you enter this competition, Don?”

“I was told… I was _given_ the opportunity, and figured it would be fun, so … here I am.” There’s something a little off about the way Don says this, as though they’re trying incredibly hard not reveal something they had been told to keep hidden. I’ll have to keep an eye on them, as well as Christy.

“You live and work in New York, correct?” Noel asks, “Quite a distance to travel for a competition…”

“Yes!” Don sparks up a little, ignoring the latter half of what Noel had said, “I’m the head baker of the Two Little Red Hens Bakery there. I took over in 2006 after the last owner retired.”

“Do you have a speciality, or something you love to make?” Sandi asks, “An idea for your signature bake?”

“I really like making cakes, although my favourite thing to eat has to be New York cheesecake,” they inform the presenters, “But the thing I absolutely love to make is my grandmother’s winter spice cake.”

“Oh?” Noel ponders, “What makes it so special?”

“I have a lot of memories of helping my grandmother make it, and as a child the best part was always making the trees that sit on top of it.” they say, gaze a little wistful, a genuine smile stretching across their face.

I see the producer glance at his watch, press a button on the console, and tell the pair to hurry up in the microphone sticking out of the console.

Velma is crouched on the floor by the oven door, watching her scones bake apprehensively, when Sandi, Noel, and the camera operator approach.

“Hello, Velma!” Sandi, this time, starts the conversation, “You seem a little worried, do you want to tell us about what’s going on?”

“Um,… yep. I ran out of time, so my scones aren’t the prettiest,” Velma bites her lip as she says this, “Hopefully the taste will make up for it.”  
  


Sandi holds aloft two pairs of crossed fingers, “Fingers crossed.”

Velma chuckles, smiling for the first time on camera, and repeats the phrase.

“So, why did you enter this competition?” Noel asks, “I hear you’re a big fan of the show?”

“Well, actually, I was entered against my will, and I didn’t know this was happening until earlier today,-” Noel and Sandi seem a little taken aback by this, - “but now that I’m here, I couldn’t be happier. It’s a dream come true.”

“Sorry, can we go back to the first bit?” Noel queries, “You were entered without your will?”

“No, we cannot.” the producer says into the microphone.

Sandi glares at one of the cameras, but still gathers all of her professionalism and continues. “What’s your favourite thing to make? What are you planning for your signature bake?”

“I was thinking maybe doing something with the icing? I’m not very artistic, so I’m going to be focussing all of my attention on making whatever I make taste good.”

“Time’s up.” the producer says into the microphone, “Wrap things up.”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

Andy had taken our parents contact details and left us with our mugs of hot cocoa that Emmett had brought in. He, Andy, had told us he was going to contact our parents while Emmett sets up some rooms for us to isolate in for our duration here.

“Fred.” Daphne said, clearly not having forgotten his admission about orchestrating the last ‘mystery’, shifting to face him better, “What the heck?”

Fred flinched again, “What do you mean?”

He’s obviously faking his cluelessness, so Daphne just stares him down until he divulges his secrets.

“Dad wanted me to impress one of his guests, so I figured it would be a good idea-” Fred started, a little frantic in his manner of speaking.

“A good idea?” Shaggy asked, “Even _I_ think that’s a terrible idea to trick people for your own benefit.”

Fred shot him a rather confused look, but continues regardless, slightly slower this time, “The guest, Deputy Bucky, wants to be Sheriff, and Dad is helping him get there. For some reason, he’s a ghost nut, so Dad told me to stage something.”

“But what about all the supposed ghosts we summoned?” I asked, “And all the information I found online or from the library?”

“Paid actors.” he explained, “And I had someone plant the information for you to find. I’m pretty certain I commissioned the Divinations book from an artist.”

“What about when they disappeared? Or appeared to go through walls?” Daphne urged.

“Smoke bombs, trick walls, that kind of thing.” he replied dismissively, “Why does this matter anyway, it’s over now, right?”

“You betrayed our trust, how is that okay?” I had never seen Shaggy get riled up, for the most part he had always been pretty mellow, but the fury on his face was painfully visible.

“I-…”

“You can think again about becoming a member,” Daphne said, getting off the bed, moving away from Fred, and sitting down in the armchair Andy had occupied, “Your honorary membership is being revoked.”

“That was an official thing?” I asked Daphne, unaware that Fred’s outburst counted as official statements now.

“It’s not anymore.” Daphne crossed her arms.

“Let me explain!” Fred burst out, standing up suddenly, waking up Scooby, “Just listen to me.”

“I think we’ve heard enough from you.” Shaggy gently pulled Fred down so he’s sitting on the bed.

It’s a while before anyone speaks again. Fred and Daphne, pride running high, both refuse to speak first or even apologise, so they simply sit opposite each other in stubborn silence. Shaggy found a pack of cards in the nightstand drawer, so Scooby, Shaggy, and I all play President for a couple minutes (of course, we changed the last place title from “dog” to “servant”).

Scooby slammed his last card down with enough force to bend it, proclaiming “President!”, as a figure appeared at the door.

Daphne noticed them first and rushed to help them once she recognised them. The figure gestured for her to not come any closer, telling her instead to sit down. By this point we had also noticed the figure and gathered around Daphne. Like pre-schoolers, we all, including the figure, we sit down, cross-legged, on the carpet.

“So,” Tania said, “You’re the kids who’ve been up to no good, eh?”

We all nodded, there’s no denying it after all. Daphne tried to apologise again, but like last time it’s dismissed swiftly.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t worry about it, I can’t blame you, I would’ve-” she started having a coughing fit, but refused to let anyone come closer to help her. She scooted back until she was sitting with her back to the wall of the corridor, - “Don’t come any nearer!”

She continued to cough for a while, using a corner of her blanket to cover her mouth. Each cough seemed to shove her frail frame against itself, and I couldn’t help but wonder how on earth this lady had been able to fight for this long, or how she’d even managed to get out of bed to come talk to us.

Eventually, the coughs abated, and Tania continued to speak. “I overheard my brother telling you kids what happened, so I just wanted to thank you all.”

“Thank us?” I asked, “But, haven’t we put a strain on you and your brother’s lives by coming here? We’ve at the very least kept you up late…”

“Andy would never admit it, but I can tell he enjoys having you here.” Tania explained, “He probably hasn’t properly talked to anyone since he sent away all of his staff. I didn’t actually know he did that… I should probably thank him.”

“Couldn’t he talk to you?” Shaggy wondered aloud, “Sibling relationships, and all?”

Tania laughed, “No, we hated each other. We used to fight all the time as kids, and it didn’t get much better as adults. Plus, I’m sure he could see the writing on the wall and just wasn’t telling me. I don’t have long left, especially since I was refusing to take… those _antibiotics_.”

She snarled a little as she said that but catches herself. Tania sighed, “I should probably take them, shouldn’t I? For Andy’s sake?”

Even Scooby could tell she wasn’t waiting for an answer when she said this, so we all sat in silence expecting for her to continue. She didn’t. In fact, after a few moments we heard some gentle snoring from under the blanket. When Emmett returned to show us to our rooms, he paused when he saw the bundle of blankets in the corridor. He had shot us a worried look before we explained that she was just sleeping. Emmett scooped Tania and the blankets up like a tender leviathan and brought them both back to the room next door. 

When he returned, he had to take a moment to wipe a small tear from the corner of his eye.

“Right, kids, you ready to head to your new rooms?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> I was going back over some old chapter notes, correcting here and there, and I came across the very first one which said something along the lines of: "this'll probably finished by July." Ha! No.  
> The way things are currently going, it'll probably be finished by actual Christmas. Or who knows, six months from now, I'll be saying it'll be finished in July again.
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	24. Chapter 24

_**Daphne, now:** _

It’s time for the scones to come out of the oven now, and I realise I had been standing at the back of the production tent for the full forty minutes they’ve been baking. I go find a stool, or something, to rest on. There’s a little seating area where a couple people, presumably all of them Christy’s guests, are sitting, watching the various monitors. An elderly gentleman looks up, sees me walking up to him, and scoots a little to make space for me.

“Hello.” he says in the thickest New York accent I have ever heard, “That’s my kid up there, Don.”

“Oh!” I can’t help but exclaim slightly, “You’re Don’s father? Julius Santiago?”

Julius Santiago, Don’s father, was the Gordon Ramsay of the baking world, even a baking amateur like me knew his name. Of course, I had known that he was Don’s father, that’s why I tried out the Two Little Red Hens Bakery in the first place, but I wasn’t expecting him to be here, watching this weird baking contest. The man before me looks nothing like he did in his heyday, the razor-sharp jaw is gone, softened, as is the iconic glasses and piercing look that was once plastered across every billboard in America.

“The one and only.” he laughs, extending his hand to me as I sit down, “And you?”

“I’m Daphne, a friend of Velma’s.” I told him, “Sort of.”

He seems confused by this but doesn’t press further. Instead, he keeps talking about Don. “I taught that kid everything I know.” He puts a hand to his chest and seemed to be ready to cry, “I was so proud when they took over my bakery.”

I blink, “You… Your bakery?”

Julius laughs again, he’s more like a jolly Santa then the harsh baker persona he’s best known for playing on TV, “Oops, I forgot, … You see, Don doesn’t have the talent, not really. They can bake fine, -” judging by Julius’ shrug here “fine” is clearly _very_ disappointing, -“ but they’re much better at management. All of the recipes served there are mine.”

“Well, then why’s he competing?” I blurt out, “If he’s not up to the professional level, do they even stand a chance?”

“They’ve been practising the recipes all week; I’ve eaten so many damn cakes I don’t want to see another one until _next_ Christmas.” he explains, “As far as this is concerned, he’ll manage, plus it’ll boost his public image out from under my shadow.”

It seems everyone but Velma has an ulterior motive to this competition…

I glance up at the monitor: it’s judging time.

Both Velma and Don had selected six of their twelve scones to present, and they now wait on their respective counters for the judges.

Velma’s up first. She seems incredibly anxious as she brings her scones up to the table: her hands shake, and she nearly drops the plate altogether. Prue tries to smile at her reassuringly, but it ends up backfiring due to a falter in her poise upon seeing the scones.

“Hm,…” Paul starts, “These aren’t the prettiest, are they?”

Paul’s right. The scones were a little lopsided, or sparse on the cheese, or a bit dented-looking, or all of the above. Velma bites her bottom lip as she nods.

“I’d call them rustic.” Prue attempts to soften the blow, Velma appears crushed by this, “Let’s just try them first, alright? Never judge a book by the cover.”

Despite the outward appearance of the scones, the judges seem pleasantly surprised by the quality of the scones. Prue flashes Velma a thumbs up as she digs into a small chunk of it.

“This is perfect!” Prue tells her, “It’s exactly what I was looking for: that light, soft but flaky texture, an even spread of cheese, it’s even got that wonderful buttery aroma. You’ve done a great job.”

“A little more cheese on top would’ve been nice, and you could’ve spent a little more time on the appearance,” Paul starts, “but Prue’s right. The texture and flavour is flawless, you’ve got that balance exactly right.”

Velma nods, the relief rolling off of her in waves, she looks like she’s screaming with joy inside.

Don is far less nervous when they walk up to present their plate of scones. There is a tiny falter in their step, but that could’ve been simply to avoid tripping. Their composure was like that of a movie spy, courteous and elegant.

The judges, however, did not pile on the compliments or niceties. They pointed out the “brilliant browning”, but after the taste test, the criticisms began to pour out. Julius had been right: Don can put up appearances, but the talent is clearly lacking when examined under closer inspection.

“Is it just me, or is this quite bread like?” Prue wonders aloud, “It’s not very flaky, is it Paul?”

“No, I agree, this is quite bread-like…” Paul concurs, “By any chance, Don, did the butter melt in your hands while you were mixing?”

“It did, yes, I … thought it was supposed to do that?”

“Some, yes, but there has to be pockets of butter in the dough, else it turns into this.” Prue explains, handing a bit of Don’s scone to them, “See how it’s not very crumbly? A good scone should have a “short” crumbly texture, not this tough, bread-y texture.”

“Also, look at this-” Paul shows a bit of rather undercooked scone to the camera, - “it’s undercooked. I’m guessing you forgot to preheat your baking tray?”

Don nods.

“I’m afraid that although your scones were very pretty, they lacked the flavour and texture we’re looking for.” Paul drops the bit of scone down onto the plate.

Paul and Prue disappear into another room to “deliberate”, but to no-one’s surprise, they reappear within minutes to announce that Velma had won this round.

Don nods to Velma gallantly, and allows for her to hug them, even smiling as she does so. I see them whisper “congrats!” into her ear so the mics don’t catch it. Maybe Don’s alright, they were probably being used as a puppet by Christy, anyway.

“Right!” Sandi claps her hands together, Noel copies her, chuckling, “Well done, Velma, for winning this round! Everyone else watching this, feel free to wander around for the next half hour while we set up the next round. See you all in a bit!”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

“I couldn’t find a room each for you, I’m afraid,” Emmett explained, “So some of you are going to have to pair up.”

He lead us down a long corridor, at the end of which were three identical doors. He opened each one and flicked the lights on to show us inside.

The middle door swung open to reveal a room lavishly decorated in a style popular in the 1920s. I swear this house was basically a museum on interior décor through the ages. It looked small, or at least seemed so due to the sheer number of things in the room. The bed was a monstrous beast: its rigid metal frame struggling to contain the mountain of springs, feathers, and pillows. The headboard was made with wide wood and the bed frame was decorated with adorned posts that I could easily imagine a silent film actress leaning against with a pout. Everything in the room was either dark mahogany or wine red in colour, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see a black-and-white photo of this in a history textbook demonstrating the extravagant spending of people living in this era.

The door on the right, on the other hand, looks as though someone plucked it straight out of a 70s catalogue or cartoon. It was comically void of human touches: everything had its place and it would remain there for the rest of time. The floor was covered in rough, shaggy carpet, and inexplicably, a bright orange rug lay a top of it, beside the bed. A mixed pile of pillows spruce up the aforementioned waterbed, while a potted cactus sits at the foot of the it. A wicker nightstand holds an obnoxiously large lamp and an orange alarm clock. Oh yeah, did I mention, everything that can be tie-dyed is? The duvet cover, the curtains, the pillow covers, you name it: it’s tie-dyed.

Unlike with the other rooms, I couldn’t place this bedroom on the left in history. Firstly, everything was pastel. It was very minimalistic and comprised of almost entirely clean-cut lines, which as far as I was hadn’t really been a trend in the decades prior. It’s as if a unicorn ate the room and threw it back up again. On the far side of the bedroom, a concrete block about waist high sits, with stairs made of the same concrete on the left side of it, painted to resemble a gray-ish version of baby blue. On the concrete block is an odd, futuristic looking pink lamp and armchair. In addition to this, there is a mattress, (no bedframe!) a faux fur rug and a pile of also pastel pink books. The lower half of the room, or the bit that’s _not_ on the concrete block, is essentially a sitting room.

“The rooms on the end both have en suite bathrooms, and there’s a bathroom down the corridor for whoever’s using the middle room to use. I’ll come let you guys out at around seven tomorrow.” Emmett told us, “So, who’s taking which rooms?”

Daphne looped her arm with mine, leading us both into the pastel room. “We’ll take this one.” she said, not giving me a choice. I, personally, would have chosen the 1920s room, but I probably would’ve bunked with Daphne either way, so it didn’t bother me _that_ much.

Shaggy and Scooby were both clearly eyeing the 70s room, so Fred went into the 1920s room without a word. The pair both quite happily bounded into the 70s room without another complaint.

“It’s quite late now, so I expect you kids to go to bed immediately, alright?” Emmett urged, “No more playing about.”

That was when I realised that the pastel room only had the one bed, or the one mattress, I suppose.

It appeared as though Daphne had the same thought as she glanced at me. In a split second, we both started racing towards it, neither of having to say whoever got there first gets the bed. We scramble over one another on the stairs, tripping over the rug, flopping down on the mattress with _far_ too much force to be safe.

Daphne, after throwing a pillow in my face, got the lead and crawled under the covers just seconds before me. She stuck out a tongue at me, teasing and taunting as I took a pillow and blanket to the sofa below.

She, obviously, fell asleep before me, after safely removing all of her makeup, undoing her hairdo, and undressing a little. I tossed and turned on the sofa but struggled to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Something at the back of my mind was nagging at me still. Eventually, I give up trying to fall asleep and glanced around the room, looking for something to occupy my brain. One of the large windows I had simply ignored earlier turned out to actually be a door, leading out to a small balcony. Looking to the right, I see that the other rooms have similar balconies, although they’re presently empty. I sat on the edge of the balcony, letting by feet dangle off by sticking my legs through the balcony fence.

There was a slight breeze: nothing particularly cold, but enough to make me pull the blanket a little tighter around me and notice the chill nipping at my toes. The moon seemed particularly large that night, illuminating both the sea and Crystal Cove. Waves came crashing down with a distant thunderous thwack. Crystal Cove, a town I had now lived in for a few weeks, already felt like home. The buildings that stretched out beneath me were brandished in my memory, securing their place there for an eternity.

Fred must’ve left a window open as I can hear him talking to Emmett on the way back from the bathroom.

“-you remember the time I pushed you into the fountain?” Fred said, “That was pretty funny…”

“And surprisingly impressive, you were only, what, nine at the time?” Emmett replied cheerfully, “You must’ve caught me off-guard or something.”

Fred laughed, “Sure I did.”

There was a pause before Fred continued. “Emmett?”

“Hm?”

“Why were you my babysitter for all those years if you were actually working for Andy?” Fred asked, “Did my father really never bother to check what I was up to when he wasn’t around?”

“I don’t know, buddy. I mostly just played with you because you looked lonely.” Emmett seemed to sigh deeply, “And anyway, why do you call him your father?”

“Yeah, I know, most people my age call their father ‘dad’,” Fred replied dismissively, “but it never felt right, y’know?”

“No, I meant, you know he’s not _actually_ -.” Emmett stopped, something must’ve crossed his mind, “Never mind. Sleep well, Fred.”

I heard his footsteps getting further and further away, until I couldn’t hear them at all.

Daphne joined me on the balcony a few moments later, asking why I wasn’t asleep. She sits beside me, and I let her into my blanket bubble. I joked a little, asking the same of her, until noticing she seemed genuinely worried, upon which I explained I had struggled to get to sleep.

“The mattress is too big for just me,” she said, “C’mon we can share.”

She took me by the hand, gently pulled me up, lead me back inside, and we fell asleep intwined in each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far! 
> 
> Apologies for the note that was here before: I was running late this morning. 
> 
> I'll be on holiday for the next two weeks, so depending on whether or not I have wifi the chapter might be a bit late. Sorry in advance. 
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	25. Chapter 25

_**Daphne, now:** _

After making arrangements with Julius to meet back up after the break as neither of knew anyone else in the tent, I go to meet Velma by the production tent. There are a couple of patches of people milling about outside the marquee, presumably to get autographs and photos with the Bake Off judges and presenters, but not enough to call them a crowd. I see Velma squeeze past a couple of people, waving to catch my attention.

“Do you want to get a late lunch?” I ask as she approaches, “We forgot to eat while we were baking.”

“Yeah, sure.” Velma replies, seeming a little distracted, “They told us about the next challenge off-camera though, so do you mind if we just grab some sandwiches at the bakery? I need to pick up some ingredients before they start rolling the cameras again.”

I agree, and we make our way to the bakery again.

“Sorry about this,” Velma says, her scarf-filled hand brushing against mine, “I know you’re on vacation right now, I really shouldn’t be making you work with me.”

“Hey, no,” I try to say reassuringly, “This is fun, my job is nowhere near this entertaining, usually. If anything, it’s downright depressing at times.”

“I can imagine, firing people? Ripping away their livelihood?” Velma stares at the ground as she says this, her mind elsewhere, “That sounds like one of the worst jobs in the world.”

“Mm, there’s worse…”

We walk in silence for a bit for a while. Slowly, my head cleared, and I noticed little things I would normally simply overlook. The glistening of the mildest frost on tarmac, gluing the leaves to the pavement not long after they fell from the boughs of the quaking aspens lining the street. The quiet scrape of a minor running a sizable branch against any walls within reach. The gentle words of a father zipping up his child’s jacket, taking their hands into his own after they lost their gloves to a particularly strong gust of wind.

Velma flicks on the bakery’s stereo system as she puts up her coat, and I can’t help but cringe at the sound that emitted from the speakers.

“Hm?” Velma notices, “What?”

“This song has been played on repeat by every radio station since November 1st,” I explain, covering my ears in an attempt to block out the sound, “I _do not_ want to hear it again.”

“Oh, come on,” Velma laughs, snatching the hat from my head and unwrapping my coat from around my shoulders like I’m a child, “It’s not _that_ bad.”

“It is.”

“ _I don't want a lot for Christmas, // There is just one thing I need, and I-,_ What are you doing?” Velma stops me just as I’m about to turn it off, grabbing my hands, “No, no, no, we’re dancing.”

‘Dancing’ is a strong word. She mostly just uses my arms like puppet strings, pulling me here and there at her whim while singing the parts she knows, vaguely humming the rest.

“Nooo…” No matter how much I protest, Velma doesn’t relent, not letting either of us be still for the full three minutes and fifty-five seconds of the song. I guess it also didn’t help that a grin had started to stretch across my face about halfway through the song due to the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

Finally, however, the song comes to an end. “ _All I want, all I really want is you_ _._ ” Velma sings into an imaginary microphone, giving it her all.

As the song fades out, so does the festive mood that had settled over us both. Velma coughs awkwardly, and we break apart again, the gap between us even wider than before.

“So,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “Sandwiches?”

It’s not long before we’re settled at one of the tables, tiered plate stand of sandwiches between us. They are those British tea party style sandwiches I’ve seen on Pinterest before: white or whole wheat, crust-less, triangle sandwiches with minimal to no seasoning.

“Sorry they’re not fresh: Emily usually makes them in the morning,-” Velma apologises, glancing up from her notebook in which she had been making scribbled notes, - “so these are from yesterday.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I say, taking a bite out of a tuna mayo one and swallow before continuing, “We’re just reducing food waste, right?”

Velma nods, burying her head into her notebook again. This reminds me a lot of high school lunch breaks, minus the ridiculous British sandwiches. Velma, like now, would have her head in a book or notebook, either working on a case or homework, while Shaggy and Scooby tried to sneaky steal from everyone else’s lunches. Fred would usually be pestering me about something or trying to coax one of us into a conversation, and he almost always knocked something over as he did so.

“What’s the second challenge?” I ask, taking a page out of high school Fred’s book, “What are you planning?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you.” Velma doesn’t even bother to look up, instead blindly grabs a sandwich and shoves it into her mouth.

“Please?” I lament, “I’m going to find out soon, anyway.”

“Exactly.”

I pout, leaning back in my chair, trying to remember what Fred actually did at this point, other than spill someone’s drink, I mean. Before I can scrounge anything up from my memory, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

It’s Brenda from work, calling on a Saturday afternoon. Of course she is.

I glance quickly at Velma, who had just gotten up to go into the kitchen for some ingredients, get up out of my seat and move, hopefully, out of earshot.

“Hi!” a chipper voice says on the other line, “Daphne, I really need you to do me a favour…”

“What is it, Brenda?” I ask, already having guessed the answer, “Do you want me to cover for you again?”

“Oh, would you please?” she asks, a whine in her voice, “My husband just surprised me with a surprise vacation to the Alps, you know what he’s like.”

“Hm.” is all I can manage before asking, “So, what days do you need me to cover?”

“The twenty-fourth until the third, please,” Brenda replies, “If you don’t mind?”

“Christmas Eve?”

“Well, you don’t really have anyone to spend it with, right?” Rude. “Plus, it’ll be really straight forward, nothing happens between Christmas Eve and New Year’s anyway. Just knock out some of the filler stuff, you know where they are.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” I sigh, “See you at work, Brenda.”

I flop back down into my seat, and Velma, who had returned with an armful of jars and bottles, treats me to a look.

“I know, I’ll take a break from work after this, I promise.” I even extend my pinky to her. “It’s nearly time to go, you got everything?”

_**Velma, 1994:** _

On a rather crisp mid-December morning, I came downstairs to find the living room a mess. When I had gone to bed the night before, everything had been neat, my mother had made sure of that. There were blankets and pillows strewn about mindlessly, books littering the floor, a cup of orange juice spilled and hastily mopped up on the coffee table. A stack of DVDs had been left next to it, along with a pile of badminton equipment on the floor.

I sighed and went to make myself some hot chocolate.

My mother and I had been living in Crystal Cove for a couple months when the first foster child came to stay with us. She was called Melissa Harvey, an energetic nine-year-old who was now sleeping in the spare room with three of her closest friends, Samantha, Lexi, and Earl.

She had been staying with us for a couple days now, and Mum decided to let her have a sleepover with her friends, so she doesn’t get “lonely”, as if she doesn’t see them everyday at school. They’d stayed up late the night before watching Star Wars, and kept me up with the noise.

Mum was already in the kitchen, making pancakes, when I came in.

“Good morning, sleepy head.” she laughed, ruffling my hair a little, “Did you sleep well?”

“Morning, and no.” I replied, grimacing a little, “Did you see the mess they created?”

Mum gave me a warning look. “We’ve talked about this…”

“Yeah, I know, _be nice_.” I mocked her a little, but upon seeing her expression, apologise, “Sorry, I’m trying, it’s just a bit much.”

“It’s only for a few more days,-” Mum said, passing me a plate of pancakes, - “and maybe the next kid won’t be so full of energy.”

“Hm, thanks.”

“Oh, and could you get your friend to give Melissa and her friends a lift to school?” Mum asked, “I have to get some things done before I head into work today.”

“Can’t they take the bus?” Mum raised an eyebrow, I put my hands up in the air in surrender, “Fine.”

Not long after this, Melissa, rubbing her eyes, came downstairs, and I could hear voices chattering away above me. Melissa’s favourite colour is green, so it’s not surprising that once again she was wearing green from head to toe. She talked to Mum for a bit while I read a book I’d found in the library a couple days ago. It was actually quite fascinating how in some coastal areas, in the Edwardian era, seaweed was used as -

Melissa slammed her plate of pancakes onto the table across from me, causing the water in the jug to splash onto the table. She stuck out her tongue at me when she noticed me glance up. I reciprocated, of course, then attempt to go back to my book, but am impeded by Melissa talking to me.

“Your dumb loser friends are driving us to school today, right?” she asked, the mocking clear in her voice, “Is it the same van? Because last time it was stinky.”

“They’re not _losers_.” I corrected her, “And it doesn’t smell that bad.”

“It does! It must be because that friend of yours smo-.”

“Shut. Your. Mouth.” I warned her with as much hostility I could manage, but I could see her mouth turn upwards with a smirk, knowing she now had an edge on me.

Mum must’ve heard, as she approached the table, “What’s going on? Is there a problem?”

Melissa paused before answering, weighing her options.

“I was saying that Velma’s friend’s van stinks because…-” Melissa glanced at me, gauging what my reaction would be, before meeting Mum’s eye, - “because one of her friends farts a lot.”

My stomach sank. Had Melissa simply told the truth, I could’ve refuted of dismissed the claim, I knew how to convince my mother, but now she had lied for me, she’s going to want something back, or at least use it against me for all its worth.

“Oh, do they must have IBS, or something, otherwise that’s very rude.” Mum commented, retracting once again, “Don’t talk like that in front of then, okay Melissa? They might not be able to help it.”

Melissa gave me another smirk, adding after Mum was out of earshot, “You owe me now.”

“I owe you nothing.” I hissed at her, “If you think it smells that bad, you should get the bus.”

“You _know_ I can’t do that.” Melissa glanced up at the ceiling and I knew, I just knew, something was going on upstairs. I moved to get up, but Melissa hurriedly grabbed around my waist, pulling me into a far too tight hug.

“Aww…” Mum said, looking around for her camera, “Stay there!”

She left the room to look for it, and Melissa immediately let go.

“The bus doesn’t come here because your stupid house is too far away from the school.” she stated simply.

“You could walk to the nearest one.” I suggested, “It’s not that far away.”

“It’s two miles away,-” Melissa gestured to the window, - “and it’s raining.”

She continues to insult the house, my clothes, the weather, but, curiously, never my mother.

“What’s going on upstairs?” I ask, no longer listening to her rant, suspicions rising, “What are your friends up to?”

“I-, nothing.”

I was about to question her further when I hear Mum from the hallway shout, “Kids, I see the van at the top of the street, you all better be ready to go.”

I could hear a scrambling upstairs, and by the time I join Mum in the hallway three rosy cheeked nine-year-olds with bright backpacks on their backs were lined up neatly on the landing. As they came downstairs, I gave each of them a glare, but none of them gave anything up. When I went to get my bag from my room, I found nothing out of its place or particularly suspicious looking, so I simply have to head out without discovering anything of value.

Mum waved goodbye from the doorstep and vanished inside again before we had even turned the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> Just a quick reminder for anyone who can vote in the upcoming November election, make sure you're registered to vote, and if possible, vote early. :)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	26. Chapter 26

_**Daphne, now:** _

Velma doesn’t speak as we put back on our outer layers and she gently places a covered Tupperware box into her backpack. She doesn’t comment on the fairy lights as we walked past the café from our first day together. She doesn’t rush to the aid of a child when they slipped and fell just a little ahead of us. Something was off, and she wasn’t going to talk about it willingly, that’s for sure.

“I wonder if we’ll get a white Christmas this year.” I wonder aloud, assessing Velma’s reaction from the corner of me eye. Nothing. Her face is as easy to read as it is to see through as ice formed over a muddy puddle.

“What are you doing tonight?” I ask her, attempting again to pry her out of her clam-like shell, this time a little more successfully.

“Not much. I need to make the Christmas display ahead and another batch of Jammy Star Cookies.” Velma replies, at first her tone monotone before becoming more imbued with feeling, “They’re Alexi’s favourite, so I figured I’d bring some along to the birthday party tomorrow.”

“What’s the display going to be?” I enquire, mentally noting to myself to wrap Alexi’s present when I get home, “And can I help?”

“Yeah, of course you can. I was originally thinking a festive cake thing, but I’m going to use that for the competition instead, so I was thinking like some kind of gingerbread scene.” Velma gestures as though the image is in front of her, “There would be a cabin or a house, and it would be in a forest of gingerbread trees. Kind of like the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel.”

“Oh, that sounds fun.” I say, knowing the next question was going to make this conversation seem more like a quiz than anything else, as I’m already starting to feel like I’m an interrogator, “What did you get Alexi for her birthday?”

“She really likes Lego, so I got her one of those program-able ones, I think it’s called something like Boost?” she pulls out her phone to show me a gif of a Lego robot dancing, “Yeah, the Boost Creative Toolbox, see?”

“That’s pretty cool,” I say, Velma’s phone and hands retreating back into her pockets, “I wish I had something like that as a kid.”

Velma shivers, and pulls her coat tighter around herself, nodding. “Same here.”

“Are you cold?” I ask, noticing only now how thin and worn Velma’s coat looked. It had clearly seen some rough winters over the years and was now in need for some fixing, or at the very least some sprucing up.

“A little.” she replies, her voice small, “To be fair, we just ate cold food in a cold room and are now walking in the freezing weather, so it’s only natural.”

“Come here,” I say, opening up my arms for her to hug me, “I’ll be your heater, like old times.”

Velma chuckles, but does hug me. “Thank you.”

We stumble our way through the first few steps, not quite yet in sync, tripping over each other’s feet. After a couple minutes of tripping, we straighten out, counting the steps as if we’re doing a three-legged race. As we approach the church faire again, Velma lets go, her hand briefly holding mine before letting go, a blush rising in her cheeks.

“Sorry.” she apologises, “I just,-… forgot?”

Unsure of how to respond, I instead grab her hand, give it a quick squeeze and smile. “Happens to the best of us.”

Velma had stopped walking when she let go of my hand, so I paused with her. She looks like she wants to say something, but was still figuring it out in her head, so I give her a moment in silence.

“Were you going to tell me you liked me, back in the stall, before Emily interrupted you?” she asks, finally looking up at me. She’s making direct eye contact with me and her gaze remains fixed even after she finishes her question.

Suddenly, the ground is absolutely fascinating. The frost clinging to the grass? Delightful. The twisty pattern of the bricks making up the pathway? Superb. Hotel? Trivago.

“We both know why we broke up, right?” Although it was technically a question, it was clear Velma didn’t want an answer, “We were just… pretending to not remember.”

“Well, maybe-.” I start.

“Don’t try to justify it.” Velma’s voice is ice cold and serious, the jolly, bubbly person gone, hidden under the years of agony and trauma, “It’s much, much worse if you actually forgot.”

“You think about… it,-” I feel horrendous using ‘it’, but I didn’t have it in me to say the name yet, I just can’t, - “a lot?”

“Every day.” She fiddles idly with the strap of her backpack.

“I’m sorry.” I reply sincerely, trying my best to convey everything I want to say in just those two little words.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” It’s plain as day what she meant when she said this.

“It’s not your fault either, though, you know that right?” I step forwards, motioning to hug her, but she steps back, arms crossed protectively around herself.

“Sure.” She keeps her eyes trained on her shoes.

There’s a pause in the conversation, as though someone who _should_ be speaking isn’t here to do so. The pain punches me in the gut as I remember, knowing perfectly well that what I’m feeling, and what I had felt, was barely a fraction of what Velma’s going through. Sh*t, I had been trying so hard to avoid this.

“I’ve got to get going.” Velma’s already starting to back away from me as she says this, “The competition is going to start back up again soon.”

She turns away from me and walks briskly away. It occurs to me then that I should at least say goodbye, so something to that effect, so I call out to her, “Good luck!”

Velma doesn’t bother turning around, she just waves vaguely over her shoulder as though she was waving away a pest.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

First and second period were pretty straight forward and simple. It was nice to just throw myself into my studies and not be pulled away by mysteries, or foster siblings, or anyone from the gang pulling me (physically) out of lessons. I’d managed to make a few acquaintances outside of the crew, but no-one I’d really call a friend. The professors were starting to notice, I think, because they kept pairing me off with whoever else looked lonely in class. It was usually the same kid, however, over and over.

His name was Daniel Olsson, and he was the youngest person in our year. He must’ve skipped a year, or something, because I can’t think of another way in which a fourteen-year-old would be in Sophomore classes. I wasn’t surprised to learn that he would do other students’ homework in trade for chocolate biscuits (I’m not kidding), nor was I surprised to find out that he was part of almost every extra-curricular activity you could humanly do, plus a couple more. Daniel had jam-jar glasses and was surprisingly mischievous given his status as a year skipper. He was a huge Catholic, but his favourite hobbies seemed to include vandalising bus stops in addition to the usual praying. He was also a huge homophobe.

Needless to say, we did not become friends.

At recess, I found Daphne, Fred, Scooby, and Shaggy at our usual table. Fred and Daphne sat across from each other next to the window while Shaggy sat next to Fred with Scooby at his feet. It still boggled me how on earth Shaggy got away with bringing a dog to school, but I had never bothered to ask. They must’ve been waiting for me because they all look up in sync when I approach the table.

“Jinkies, what’s the matter?” I asked their identically serious faces.

“Velma, we need to talk.” Daphne pulled me into a chair by the arm, “This is very important.”

Fred looked like the perfect crook as Daphne said this. He was leaning back in his chair pensively with his fingers steepled like a James Bond villain, Blofeld specifically, and hadn’t taken his eyes off of me at all. It sent shiver down my back.

Daphne, noticing, kicked Fred under the table and shot him a glare.

“Ow, why’d you do that for-.” Fred leaned forward and whispered to Daphne, before sitting back and looking at me again, “Velma.”

Fred practically purred when he said my name, and Daphne kicked him again.

“Stop being creepy!” she hissed at him. Although I could clearly hear their hissed conversation as I was sitting right next to them, they continued this whispered argument for a while.

“I’m trying to be dramatic, I thought it could be _fun_.” Fred murmured to Daphne, who offered me an orange starburst. Shaggy and Scooby begged me for more ‘Scooby snacks’ so I tossed them a couple. They were gone before they even hit the table.

“You’re not being dramatic; you’re just being weird-” Daphne must’ve remembered I was still there at that point because she started fake coughing. Fred must be hecking dense, however, because _it takes a couple of minutes._

It was getting to the point where a couple kids at other tables were glancing over, worried someone was choking before Fred, finally taking the hint, explained their odd behaviour.

“Velma, as you know, we suck at finding mysteries to solve-.”

“That’s not fair,-.” I said, interrupting him, - “Shaggy and Scooby found our first _genuine_ mystery.”

“And Mum has forbidden us from solving any more mysteries, so look where that got us.” Shaggy pointed put, stuffing another Scooby snack into his mouth. Glancing at my backpack, I noticed Scooby sheepishly putting the bag Scooby snacks back into it. I glowered at him as he retreated under the table again.

“Right, so you’re our mystery person.” Daphne reiterated, “So why-.”

“So why haven’t we got any mysteries to solve right now?!” Fred burst out, cutting off Daphne as he leaped up from his chair and slammed his hands onto the table, causing drinks to ripple and snacks to fall to the floor.

“Stop being dramatic!” Daphne half-shouted, half-hissed at him. “Sit down.”

“Yeah, the last one was a couple weeks ago now, and finding Daphne’s neighbour’s cat was hardly difficult.” Shaggy said, waving yet another Scooby snack around. I really need to get a better lock, or something.

“And ruh-he cat was mean.” Scooby pipped up from below the table. When I checked, he was clutching his snout protectively with his paws, muttering, “Scratched my ruh-se.”

“Mr Snuggles is lovely, you just provoked her!” Daphne snapped at them, “Maybe if you didn’t try to throw him down from the tree, none of that would’ve happened.”

Shaggy and Scooby both stuck their tongues out at Daphne, who looked immensely annoyed. Kind of reminded me of siblings fighting.

“If you guys wanted more mysteries, why didn’t you just ask?” I said, rooting through my backpack, “I’ve got a notebook full of unsolved mysteries, I’ve been keeping track ever since I moved here.”

“Oh!” Fred seemed surprised, “Well, that’s great, can we take a look?”

“Sure, it’s just in here somewhere.”

The only issue there being it’s not in my backpack. I checked every pocket and every hidden compartment, even the ones I didn’t know about, tipped the whole thing upside down in the hopes it’ll just fall out, but … nothing. It wasn’t in my backpack at all.

“Well, that’s odd, I could’ve sworn I packed it in here last night before I went to sleep. In fact, I know for sure I did.” I thought out loud.

Which is when it hit me. Melissa and her 5th grade cronies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> Two days ago, one of the co-creators of Scooby Doo, Joe Ruby died of natural causes, aged 87.  
> Condolences to the family, as well as a thank you to Ruby ans Ken Spears for creating the world we know and love. 
> 
> Rest in Peace Joe Ruby.
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	27. Chapter 27

_**Daphne, now:** _

The production tent was just as bustling as it had been earlier, if not more. The PA who had taken me into the tent was standing in the corner with another PA, presumably Vicky the one he had mentioned last time we talked, chatting idly, before being called away on various tasks. The screens were still on, but they now just showed some staff wiping down the counters and arranging the ingredients for the contestants. I could see Sandi and Noel, standing barely in frame, discussing something, looking rather worried. Prue and Paul were just visible as they went into the side tent to talk to the producer.

Glancing around the tent, I see Julius waving at me and patting the chair next to him. “I saved us the best seats.” he says as I approach.

“Why are these ones special?” I ask. From where I was standing, the chairs were the same wooden pews from the church that we had sat in earlier.

“Look over there.” Julius pointed to one of the tent windows. They had all been covered with blankets, presumably to see the screens better, or to hide secrets, or something, but the one Julius was pointing to has a small rip. We were in the perfect place to be able to see out of the tent and at passers-by.

“If I’m perfectly honest with you, I don’t like Christy,” he tells me, “She seems suspicious, and I don’t think she’s going to play fair.”

“So, you got us these seats so we can keep an eye out for her?” I enquire, having already guessed the answer. Julius nods, so I nod back, “Good idea.”

We don’t have time to continue discussing further contingency plans, however, as the show starts up once more.

“Welcome back, everyone!” Noel says in the manner of a compère, “This is round two of our Professional Bake Off, and this time our contestants will be making,-“

“Christmas cake!” Sandi and Noel say in odd sync, as if they’ve been told to ramp up the energy. They no longer seem like themselves, and it’s clear from the reactions of the crowd and Velma that they are as comfortable with the new presenters as the presenters themselves are comfortable playing these new characters.

“You will have an hour and a half to bake, decorate, and present. Good luck, bakers!” Sandi chirps.

“Get set, bake!” Noel calls out, his high energy mask slipping away as soon as the camera stopped focusing on him. I see him mouth “Damn Americans.” under his breath, presumably about the producer.

Once again, the pre-recorded voiceover plays. “For today’s signature challenge, our bakers will be making Christmas cakes. Will they go for a classic Christmas cake with raisins, sultanas, and currants, or will they go for a more unconventional cake? Stay tuned to find out!”

It cuts to a shot of Velma and Don starting both of their cakes. Both Don and Velma start their cakes in similar ways: they both preheat the oven; they both grab large bowls; they both start mixing ingredients, wet and dry separately. This is where the similarities stop, however, as Don’s mixture turns bright red as they add a generous dash of food colouring to their batter, while Velma’s remains a rather neutral beige. Unlike last time, they are not trying to out-pace each other, instead they are focused solely on their bakes.

This time, Sandi and Noel talk to Velma first.

“So, Velma, what will you be making for us today?” Sandi asks, leaning over and taking a quick swipe of the batter.

Velma doesn’t notice the first swipe, but the second time, when Noel does it, she taps away his wrist. “Hey! This is a no-lick recipe, it’s got eggs in it. I’m making a vanilla sponge cake, but with Christmas twists.”

“Oh, like what, may I ask?” Noel solicits, sneakily trying to take one of the candy canes from the jar on Velma’s counter, “No big spoilers, just some hints of what we could expect.”

“I need those,” Velma laughs, taking the candy cane back, “because I’m going to crush them up and put them on the side of the cake as decoration, as well as to make a candy cane forest on top.”

Something about this sounds oddly familiar, as if I’ve heard her say those exact words before, but for some reason I cannot seem to retrieve it from the back of my mind.

“Wow, okay, that sounds fascinating!” Sandi comments, “Is that your decoration plan? A candy cane forest sounds extremely hard to pull off.”

“Actually, I’m planning on having two little snow pals adorn the top of the cake, too, in addition to the forest.” Velma smiles as she says this, taking the sieve and sifting in her dry ingredients.

Clasping a hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp, I remember then exactly why this cake sounds familiar: it was Maddy’s idea. That first Christmas, she was the one who insisted we all get together because she wanted us all to try a slice of her cake. I can picture her now, holding up the piece of cake insisting I take “at least one bite”, and my eyes well up. Nothing like the gut-punch of grief from earlier, but it takes more than a few blinks to clear my eyes, and I end up having to quickly wipe my eyes on my sleeve anyway.

“It’s sounds delightful, Velma, we look forward to eating it.” Noel says as they move on to Don.

Don is in the process of pouring their batter into their tin, ready to put in the oven, at which point they start working on the icing. They have to half-shout to be heard over the sound of the whisk, so it is decided to halt the interview until after all the whisking had concluded.

“So, Don, what kind of cake will you be making for us today, and why?” Noel asks, stealthily tasting the icing Don had made. What is it with these presenters? You’d think they’re being starved, the rate at which they’re “testing” food.

“I’m making a winter spice cake with chocolate trees for decoration.” Don replies, “When I was a little kid, every Christmas my grandmother and I would make this cake together while my Dad was away with work.”

Julius leans over and whispers, “That’s true, surprisingly, my mother was a terrible cook, but she could make a mean spice cake.”

“Really?”

He nods. As he’s turning back to face the monitors, his eye seems to catch something just over my shoulder, nudging me to look at it too. From the slightly uncovered window, I see Christy emerge from the marquee. I hadn’t noticed her on any of the monitors, so she must’ve gone into the only part of the tent without cameras: the side section where the ingredients, and the show-stopper cakes, are being stored.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

At lunch, I found myself in Fred’s van with the rest of the crew. Fred was, as usual, in the driver’s seat, getting the directions to Melissa’s school. Scooby and Shaggy were making quick work of their lunches while Daphne sat with her back to them, picking at her lunch, glaring at them occasionally, commenting loudly that their messy eating was putting her off of her own lunch. The pair, of course, ignored her and continued doing the exact same thing as before.

“It’s really not necessary to do this, guys.” I told them, “I can just get it back after school, I live with her after all.”

“It is _very_ necessary.” Fred called from the front seat.

“Just because you need mysteries to feel important, doesn’t mean we have to break into an elementary school.” I said to him curtly.

“I-, no, I don’t-” Fred stammered, pausing to take a moment to collect himself, - “We’re not just going there for your notebook, but also to check out our old school. Daphne and I haven’t visited since middle school, and I don’t know about you two, but I reckon you guys haven’t either.”

“Actually,” Shaggy pipped in, “Scooby and I visit every other Tuesday. They’ve got the best pizza boats.”

“You’re allowed to do that?” Daphne asked, turning in her seat to enter the conversation, “Oh, those pizza boats, I miss them…”

“Well, not exactly, but no-one’s said anything yet.” Shaggy said, while Scooby, taking advantage of Shaggy not paying attention to his lunch, takes Shaggy’s sandwich from under his nose. It was down the hatchet before Shaggy even turned to see where it had gone.

“Right, well, should we get going?” Fred asked, holding his car keys next to the ignition, ready for the chorusing reply.

“Wait!” I called out, “I don’t think we should be doing this.”

“If you want you can stay here and eat your lunch alone.” Fred proposed, “I don’t think anyone minds about that, except you, really-.”

Daphne punched his arm swiftly, “Don’t be mean. Velma, if you don’t want to, that’s okay. No-one is forcing you to do anything.”

“I know that.”

“But also, if we want to get your notebook back, we kind of need your help because I can’t remember what Melissa or any of her friends look like.” Daphne admitted, “Darn kids look so similar…”

I paused.

The idea of having lunch alone, as daunting and isolating that would be, didn’t seem so bad. Getting a break from all of these guys? My dream, at times. The glances from other students would be nothing compared to what I had in my last school, plus I could just eat somewhere no one else will be. However, looking at Daphne now, and heck the rest of the crew ( _not_ Fred), all of them want me to come along, not because they feel sorry for me, or because they could use me for their gain (although, that was true to a certain extent), they want me to come along because I’m their friend, and this is what you do with friends. You go on adventures together.

“Yeah, why not?”

Melissa’s elementary school was fairly close to our high school, so it didn’t take long to get there. It was a fairly large building, it had only one storey, however, so it was very wide and flat. The covered entranceway had columns designed to look like crayons, and the words “Crystal Cove Elementary” blazoned on the top. Occasionally, the wind would try to force the limp flag to move, but would drop it after playing with it idly for a moment.

Shaggy and Scooby were the first ones out of the van, followed by Daphne and me. Daphne stopped Fred from getting out of the van. “Go park it away from here, your ‘free candy’ van will raise alarms, especially outside an elementary.”

“It’s not a pe-.” Fred started, before realising, “Fair point, I’ll just go wait a little away. Let me know when you need a getaway van.”

He drove off, disappearing around a corner, leaving just the four of us.

Logically, Shaggy and Scooby would probably know the best way to get into the school without raising suspicions, so I asked them to lead the way. I was expecting a loose door, or a window that was kept open, but I was surprised to be taken straight through to the reception.

The receptionist, a rather plump lady with a bob cut, smiled as she saw Shaggy and Scooby come through, waving to Daphne and me. “Hello boys, did you bring some friends with you today?”

“Yep! Sorry it’s not Tuesday today, but our friend here-” Shaggy gestured to me, - “her sister accidentally took her notebook, so we came here to get it back before she gets in trouble for not having it. High school teachers are strict aren’t they…?”

Scooby opened his mouth to talk, but Shaggy shoved him roughly behind himself, grabbing Scooby’s snout to keep him quiet. Scooby is obviously peeved and made a show of snubbing Shaggy when he whispered a quick apology to him.

“Oh, dear, well that’s no problem, just go through.” the receptionist replies, nodding understandingly. She pressed a button on her desk, and the door to the left of her swung open. As we step through, she called out, “You know the rules, though!”

“Don’t get caught by the teachers, and be out by the time the bell rings, I know!” Shaggy called back, closing the door behind us.

“And the third rule, Scooby, is _never talk in front of Aubrie._ ” Shaggy scolded him, “How many times, buddy?”

“Aubrie doesn’t know Scooby can talk?” Daphne asked, as perplexed as I was, “But she’s known you two for nearly all of your lives.”

“She’s deeply religious, she would think Scooby’s possessed or something, and that’s just too much hassle to deal with.” Shaggy said dismissively while Scooby stubbornly refused to even acknowledge his existence, “Right, should we get this notebook of yours?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide
> 
> It's Suicide Prevention Month/Week/Day, depending on where you are. (the 10th is the day, but it's this week, and this month.) If you're having suicidal thoughts, even if you don't plan on acting on it, please, please seek help, whether they're a professional or a friend. 
> 
> Resources:  
> International (I believe so, anyway?):
> 
> Contact Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/  
> If you're worried about someone else: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/if-youre-worried-about-someone-else/
> 
> America and Canada:
> 
> The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) is a 24-hour, toll-free, confidential suicide prevention hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. It provides Spanish-speaking counselors, as well as options for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. It is only available in the United States. A 24-hour an Online Chat in partnership with Contact USA is also available.
> 
> Trans Lifeline (http://www.translifeline.org/) is a toll-free crisis hotline available in the United States and in Canada for transgender people staffed by transgender people.  
> The Trans Lifeline can be reached at 1-877-330-6366.
> 
> UK:
> 
> Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) – for men  
> Call 0800 58 58 58 – 5pm to midnight every day
> 
> Papyrus – for people under 35  
> Call 0800 068 41 41 – Monday to Friday 9am to 10pm, weekends and bank holidays 2pm to 10pm  
> Text 07860 039967
> 
> Childline – for children and young people under 19  
> Call 0800 1111 – the number will not show up on your phone bill
> 
> I don't know all of the contacts for every organisation in every country, but most of them will be a Google search away, so hopefully I have at the very least given you a starting off point. Here is a Wikipedia list of suicide crisis lines in various countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)  
> \- MoonRenegade


	28. Chapter 28

_**Daphne, now:** _

What the hell was Christy doing in the fridge tent, or whatever it’s called? I shoot up abruptly, motioning to leave the tent, when Julius grabs the corner of my sleeve, tugging at it to get me to sit back down again.

“Don’t you know anything about solving mysteries?” Julius asks, not giving me a chance to tell him that, in fact, I actually know quite a lot about the subject, “The first step is to never let the bad guys know you know something.”

He’s got a point. “Well, what do we do then, just let her get away with it?”

“Let her approach you.” Julius explains, “She’ll probably gloat away all of her secrets.”

“She would never do that, I’m confident she’s not stupid enough to do that, surely.”

“Who knows…” Julius trails off.

“Why are you helping me, Julius?” I ask, “Christy is on your side, isn’t she? She’s paying your kid to bake for her.”

Julius bellows with laughter, “Oh, god no, I hate that little uppity b*tch.”

I’m a little taken aback by this sudden use of profanity, so it takes me a couple seconds to process what Julius had just said.

Lowering his voice, he explains, “Her mother left a two-star rating on yelp for one of my bakeries. And (!) she posted to her Instagram followers to never visit my bakeries. We’ve seen a 2% drop in sales since then…”

“That’s it? I figured it would be something dramatic, like an affair or something.”

Julius shrugs, “Also this is fun, I don’t get a lot of action now that I’ve gotten a little older.”

“TMI.” I mutter, putting my hands in the air, there is no world in which I wanted to know the specifics of Julius’ love life.

“Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter.” he says, before adding, “Turn around.”

And sure enough, like Julius predicted, there was Christy. She had just entered the production tent, and is glancing around, trying to find something. She spots me, and with a grimacing grin, she makes her way over here, her heels managing to clip-clop even on the frosty grass.

Julius scoots a little away, just far enough to make it look like we’re not sitting together.

“Hi, Daphne.” she purrs, “Just wanted to drop by to wish you and your… friend good luck.”

She glances at me up and down as she says the word “friend”, as if she’s evaluating me, trying to match me in her head with Velma.

“I doubt that.” I murmur under my breath, adding “Never mind.” when she gives me a perplexed look.

“Anyhow, I’m sure Velma’s cake will be… a punch with the judges.”

“Don’t you mean ‘a hit’?” I ask, “That doesn’t really make-“

“It will make sense!” Christy snaps back. She rolls back her shoulders and coughs slightly, her eyebrow twitching upwards, “So, about Velma, …”

“What about her?” I feel myself tense up as she mentions Velma in such a menacing way. My heart beats a little harder against my chest as I lean forwards, ready to pounce if Christy so much as says a bad word about her.

“Oh, nothing.” Christy seems absolutely delighted to see my reaction, so I check myself, “I just figured you would want to know she has a boyfriend.”

“She what?”

My heart plummets not just into my shoes, but into the deepest, darkest ditch it could find, getting scratched and bitten the whole way there. Numbness spreads, and I just feel cold, despite the heaters being on full blast in here. Not that I care that Velma has a boyfriend. I’m swimming, drifting, floating along a river of my own despair, wallowing in the feeling for a moment. There’s still a flare of anger inside, burning on the only dry part of my mind, although whether this is at Velma or Christy, I can’t be certain. But I definitely don’t care that Velma has a boyfriend. Blinking back tears of shock, or anger, or misery, I see Christy place an A4-ish sealed manilla envelope on my lap. 

“There’s the evidence, if you need to see it.” Christy says with a grin. She’s gotten exactly what she wanted, and she knows it, “There’s also a workplace form in there. Just for so you can come work for me at any time.”

And with that, Christy leaves.

Silently, I hand Julius the envelope. I couldn’t bring myself to open it, so I bury my face in my hands, watching his reaction from between my fingers.

He meticulously thumbs the envelope, careful to avoid ripping the envelope. Tipping the contents into his hand, he starts flicking through the sheets inside. His face remains rather stone like, not letting me in on his reaction. “Who in the world prints photos nowadays?”

“Is it bad?”

Julius sighs, “You won’t want to see this.”

I nod in agreement, burying my face in my hands again, watching as Julius crumples up the workplace form and chucking it into a bin.

“And there’s no way you’re going to work for her, especially not after that.”

Julius pulls me into a hug, murmuring comforting words. He makes sure I’m the first to let go, even offering me a handkerchief from his pocket. Gently, he tries to draw the words out of me.

“Are you awfully close with Velma?” he asks, “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable doing so.”

“No, it’s okay, I trust you to be kind…” I meant it, too, his kid is enby, so two lesbians is hardly going to faze him, right? Although I suppose Velma is bi or pan, not lesbian, if she has a boyfriend. “Velma and I dated in high school but broke up after some… stuff happened.”

“Ah, so not fully over your ex.” Julius says, missing the mark a little, but close enough where I’ll let it slide. He pats my knee, “Well, misunderstandings happen, so perhaps this was one of these?”

It’s unclear whether he means this about Velma having a boyfriend, or about me maybe still having feelings for her. Or both. Not that I have feelings for her. Well I do, but only the platonic ones. Not the romantic ones. Of course, I’m over my high school sweetheart from decades ago. Why wouldn’t I be?

_**Velma, 1994:** _

Once we all got into the school, I realised exactly how difficult this task was going to be. I hadn’t really paid attention to Melissa when she talked about school, so I didn’t know what classes she was in, or what classroom she’s usually even in. Heck, I had a hard time even recalling which grade she was in.

Eventually, I figure out that she must be in 5th grade, and must therefore either be in the cafeteria, the playground outside, or in one of the 5th grade classrooms. We decide to tackle the cafeteria first, since that was the most likely place to find her, given it was currently lunch hour.

The cafeteria was exactly what I was expecting it to be. The standard large-ish hall that doubled as a gym hall and an auditorium, judging by the wooden platform “stage” and the cluster of basketball hoops in the corner, had row after row of circle tables, each occupied with six or seven small children. It was quite busy in there, and the noise of elementary kids eating, talking, and playing was deafening.

Shaggy waved at two twin 5th graders, who smiled back at him. Scooby bounded over to them, gesturing for them to follow him. The two children, who turned out to be Shaggy’s two younger siblings, Benji and Sugie, were clearly fraternal twins. Although they looked relatively similar, they were about as identical as normal siblings. Both had blonde hair, Benji’s cut short and Sugie’s reaching her shoulders, and ever so slightly different shades of blue eyes. They were also quite short, so we had to crouch a little in order to talk to them eye to eye.

“We’re looking for Melissa and her friends, do you know where she could be?” Shaggy asked them, “She’s in your class, right?”

Sugie glanced around a little, presumably looking for Melissa or any of her friends. Benji shook his head, “No, she’s in the other class.”

Sugie nodded in agreement, “She’s not in here, either.-” she pointed at a vacant table, - “She usually sits there, but they left a little while ago. I think they went to the playground or something.”

“Did any of them have a notebook with them, about-“ Daphne mimicked the size of my case files notebook, - “this big? It’s got a brown cover.”

The twins thought for a moment before nodding, a bit unsure at first, but with more confidence when they noticed the other twin also nodding.

I went to take my notebook out to take notes, only to realise that it was exactly why we’re here in the first place. A little pang of guilt rung in my chest and I couldn’t help but feel a tad bit of longing for the comforting familiarity of my notebook. Pushing the feeling aside, I borrowed a napkin and struggled to write a couple notes on it.

“Right, the playground is next.-” I said, glancing around for the rest of the crew, “Where’d Shaggy and Scooby go?”

Daphne shrugged, and Benji and Sugie pointed behind me, at the counter, where Shaggy and Scooby were building elaborate food towers in order to get as much food as possible onto a tray. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear a voice berating them for “wasting taxpayers’ money” that should actually be going to the children here, but I have a feeling they would be doing the exact same thing in our high school, so does it really make that much of a difference which school they’re draining from?

“Leave them.” Daphne said, pulling me away by the arm, “We don’t have that much time before we need to head back, so let’s just let them enjoy themselves.”

The playground was essentially a concrete slab with a wooden box in the middle of it. The wooden box was about the size of a small classroom and had a two-storey wooden “castle” in the centre of it. From the second floor, a plastic slide descended into the wood chips that filled the box. There appeared to be a climbing wall on the other side of the castle, next to a separate structure, built to resemble a turret. The structure was clearly built with children in mind as Daphne and I had to remain crouched down in order to avoid hitting our head against the roof, and we could easily peer over the half wall into the second floor.

We determined fairly quickly because of this that Melissa and her friends weren’t there.

Heading inside, Daphne led me down a corridor, explaining that a lot of the higher grades had their classrooms here. While she’s talking, my mind drifted a little, only returning to reality when I heard footsteps from a little ahead of us. Judging by the sound the shoes made, they were probably heels, sensible ones, that elementary kids would never wear to school. It must have been a teacher.

Hurriedly, I glanced around for an exit, only to find that the way behind us was blocked by a train of third graders and their incredibly delicate art projects, trailed by another teacher. I had to act quickly, so without thinking, I pulled the two of us into an unlocked door in the hallway, which turned out to be the _ridiculously_ small janitor’s closet.

I hadn’t really looked at Daphne very closely up until that point. And I’ve got to admit, she was pretty. Not in the way women in magazines are pretty: perfect, with crystal clear skin and bodies with fat in all the right places. She was pretty in the way you wouldn’t notice, between the lines kind of pretty. The way a lock of her hair was cascading down from her head and tickling my nose. The way her freckles sprinkled themselves across her nose and cheeks like the constellations I spent all night watching. The way she manages to make even standing too close in a janitor’s closet in an elementary school sound like a fun, lunch time activity.

“You’re blushing.” she pointed out, forcing me to realise I had been staring at her lips the whole time I had been thinking.

“Shut up.” I said, knowing very well that even in this semi-darkness of the closet my tomato face could be seen.

She took my hand in hers, playing with it absentmindedly, grinning when she sees me blush harder, glancing quickly down to my lips and back again to my eyes, “I think the coast might be clear now, we could probably get out now.”

“Yeah, we could do that.”

Neither of us moved for what felt like a stretching eternity. Something in my chest tugged for me to close what little gap was still between us, but I couldn’t work up the courage to do so.

Eventually, Daphne sighed, and clambered over a fallen over mop to cautiously glance around the door, while I silently cursed at myself, although for what I didn’t know.

I heard Daphne gasp, and rush to get out of the closet, knocking over a multitude of items, many of which avalanched onto me. Blaspheming, I scrambled my way out to follow her, managing to just catch sight of her squealing while she overwhelmed a five foot something black lady in a hug. Did this girl not know boundaries, or was she just very affectionate?

“Mrs Clifford!” she exclaimed, delight written all over her face, “I’ve missed you…”

Mrs Clifford, as mentioned earlier, was quite a short lady, and had it not been for the ID badge on a lanyard around her neck, I would’ve sworn she was a tall twelve-year-old. She was also a rather demure woman, pulling her cardigan about her as Daphne nattered her ear off. It was clear that Mrs Clifford had no idea who Daphne was, and was simply nodding along to be polite, occasionally glancing around for methods of escape or other members of staff to help her escort the two high schoolers out of the building they very clearly shouldn’t be in.

While Daphne was busy being a disaster child with, presumably, her old teacher, I decided to take a quick peek around the classrooms. One of these classrooms I had actually seen a lot in the past few weeks and was one of the mysteries in my case files, albeit a rather insignificant one.

As if by thinking about it, I had summoned my case files notebook, as it appeared around the corner, tucked under the arm of a certain 5th grader I had spent nearly all of my lunch hour hunting for. Melissa.

Deciding I didn’t have enough time to alert Daphne, who was ignoring me in favour of her old teacher anyway, I give chase after the child. Booking it down a corridor after a small child was the last thing I was expecting to do this morning, but here we are. Melissa must have heard my thundering steps, as she darts into an abandoned classroom, slamming the door closed after herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is everyone this week?  
> A lot of will you will be returning to school either later this month, or already have (depending on where you are), so how has that been for you all? Is everyone following social distancing, wearing masks, and washing their hands regularly if it's in person classes?
> 
> Also I thought I should warn you once more: as school restarts, I may not be able to get a chapter out every week, but I will certainly do my best! Thank you all for your generous patience so far. :)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	29. Chapter 29

_**Daphne, now:** _

While all of this drama with Christy was happening, Velma and Don had been busily working away on their cakes. Velma’s now is starting to take shape: it’s got three tiers to it, standing roughly 45 centimetres tall, wrapped neatly in fondant, with white icing “dripping” down the sides, a beautiful façade of chaos amidst Velma’s laser focus concentration.

Don, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying themselves. Having learnt their lesson from last round, Don is pacing themselves, even adding small flairs reminiscent of ballet. Just a certain flick of the wrist, a twirling spin, an elegant raise of the leg, that kind of thing. Makes me wonder a little, had they not become head baker at Little Red Hens Bakery, where would Don be now? I think they would make a wonderful dancer…

Their cake, however, does reflect the years of baking they have under their belt. Although only two layers, Don’s cake is magnificent. They had melted chocolate and piped it into the shape of pine trees, even adding baubles of edible glitter, and they adorned the top of the cake clustered together as though they’re huddling for warmth. In addition to this, white chocolate was dripping down the sides of the cake from where it had been smeared in order to resemble snow, although whether this was intentional or not was unclear.

In comparison, Velma is clearly running out of time. She’s startled by Prue informing them that they have five minutes left, and judging by the look on her face when she looked at the things on her counter, those five minutes was definitely not enough time for her to get everything done. Hurriedly, she scrambles to cobble together what she can, visibly praying for a miracle.

Meanwhile, Don is calmly putting the finishing touches on their cake, occasionally glancing over at Velma to give her a reassuring thumbs up, to which she replies with a shaky smile, her lip trembling a little.

The timer finally ticks down, and it’s judging time.

“Bakers,” Paul starts, “Could you please bring your cakes to the judging table?”

Velma takes a deep breath, doing her best to steady her jittery nerves, and lifts the cake stand up. Almost instantaneously, one of the ‘snowpals’ face plants directly into the cake.

She looks devastated, and if the cake means what I think it’s supposed to mean, I can understand why. Velma’s hands start to shake with more ferocity, and the cake looks like it’s experiencing an earthquake. Ever so slowly, the cake stand starts to tip forwards, and the cake starts to slide straight to the floor, and disaster.

Thankfully, Don noticed the slide, and grabbed the other side of the cake stand, righting the cake. “Here, let me help you with that, it must be heavy.”

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t going very well for Velma this round, and going off of the judges’ faces, it was not going to get any better for her.

“It’s underbaked.” Paul starts curtly, holding aloft his slice if cake, which is almost entirely batter at the tip. Velma nods, blinking back a few tears, as Paul continues, “I’m sure it would’ve tasted lovely, but we can’t eat this.”

“The fondant is quite messy here, too.” Prue turns the cake stand towards us, where it was clear some of the fondant had torn and been hastily pushed back together again. “The crushed-up candy canes look delightful, but they’re not exactly a pleasant experience when it comes to eating it.

“I’m guessing you ran out of time?” Paul asks, trying his best to be sympathetic, watching Velma, on the verge of tears, nodding in agreement, “Three tiers is difficult, and time consuming, so perhaps scale it back in the future, or make it when your time isn’t so constrained.”

Don is far more confident as they bring their cake to the judging table, the cake stand seems to almost glide through the air, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Don had been a waiter at some point.

The judges each take a slice of cake each, with the presenters taking little pieces from their plates. Prue starts coughing violently, and one of the staffers has to rush on, hand her a glass of water, and rush back, with such speed that they almost spill the entire contents of the glass in the process.

“That is… A lot of spice.” she says once the coughs stop, “Possibly even too much spice.”

“Well, you know what they say about the English palette,” Don replies light-heartedly, “It’s very _delicate_.”

Bland. Bland is what they meant.

“Also, that’s the way my grandmother liked it; she was a really fiery person.” Don adds.

“Hm.” Prue remarked, unimpressed.

“The icing is a bit messy here, too, see how there’s pools of white chocolate here?” Paul uses his pinky to gesture to puddles of white chocolate along the edges of Don’s cake caused by the dripping effect they had done, “That means you did too much, so maybe hold back a little next time?”

Don nods, taking their advice seriously.

“Also, I’m guessing you added red food colouring to the batter, right Don?” Prue asks, “Food colouring tends to fade when baked, so it’s a good rule of thumb to add a bit more than you think you need.”

“Other than that, though, it tastes good, the texture’s just right,-“ Paul says, trailing off a little.

“And your trees are just delightful!” Sandi adds, having just bitten into one.

Prue and Paul barely share a glance before declaring that they already knew who was going to win this round. It was no surprise, then, when they announced, “Don, well done, you’ve won the Signature Bake challenge!”

Don, with a smile as wide as Manhattan, goes over to hug Velma, who politely obliges, a small, strained smile adorning her own face.

“Which now means whoever wins the final challenge, the showstopper challenge, wins overall.” Noel informs us, the audience.

“And if I’m not mistaken you both made these ahead of time, and we have them already waiting in the wings, ready for judging. Let’s get them in here, then!” Sandi is using her ‘big voice’ from her impression of a high energy presenter, gesturing as dramatically she could towards one of the tent door, from which two staffers file in, each holding a cake each.

The first to enter is the one holding Don’s cake. Although it isn’t particularly tall or grandiose at first glance, upon close inspection it’s beautiful. Although I can’t tell what kind of cake through the monitors, I can see the pristine white fondant draped over the cake coating the surface like freshly fallen snow. All around the edge was roughly thirty or forty cinnamon sticks, all seemingly held to the cake by a single white ribbon tied around the cake. Adorning the top of the cake like a crown, there’s a wreath of bay leaf and rosemary sprigs. Surrounded by this, three lit tea lights sit embedded into the fondant. It is magnificent.

Velma’s cake is just behind it. It looks exactly as perfect as it did when we put it into the fridge together, had it not been for the fact that it looked like someone had dropped it and hurriedly, and horrendously roughly, ‘smooshed’ it back together again.

_**Velma, 1994:** _

“Melissa!” I shouted at the door, slamming my fist against it, “Let me in, and give me back my notebook.”

I could tell from where the door was resisting opening that Melissa must be pressing her full body weight against the door in order to prevent me from opening it.

“No!” she yelled back, “I won’t do anyt- Oh hi, sir, what are you-.”

I heard a muffled scream from inside the classroom, and with a faint click the door opened slightly.

Something about that detail terrified me far more than “hunting ghosts” with the rest of the crew ever did. If monsters aren’t real, perhaps it’s always just been humans, being horrible to each other.

Cautiously, I pushed the door open with my foot, preparing myself for whatever I would find on the other side.

Which, it turns out, was Melissa, clutching the notebook as tightly as she could, while a gangly shadowy creature holds her tightly by the collar of her shirt. Fear was blossoming in her eyes, pleading with me to help.

Glancing around the classroom, I saw that it’s an abandoned, rather messy classroom not unsimilar to the one I met Shaggy and Scooby in. This one had all of its desks and chairs piled in the corner, along the wall opposite the window, and the curtains where blocking almost all of the light. There was a small bundle of blankets underneath the teacher’s desk, where one would usually find the teacher’s chair tucked into. The room smelled like old week-old food, which was explained by the cafeteria plates covering the teacher’s desk. There was also a large duffel bag of clothes on the floor next to the teacher’s desk, half open and spilling over onto the floor, dangerously close to one of the many, many candles littered around the room.

The creature steps forward, letting me get a closer look at him. What _was_ a weird, ugly creature in the shadows, was now the awkwardly tall music teacher, cowering away from both me and Melissa, despite managing to keep a firm grip on her. It was clear that although he had eaten at some point, given the plates, he wasn’t eating enough.

“Sir, do you mind letting Melissa go? We’ll leave immediately, I just need you to let her go.” I asked him as politely as I could manage, quashing the dread inside, “ _Now_ , sir.”

Without a reply, he kicked a nearby candle into the duffel bag of clothes, setting it ablaze. He shoves Melissa onto the floor with enough force to knock the notebook out of her hands and into the fire. I swallowed back a scream of despair and focused on the situation at hand: the teacher was making a last-ditch attempt to escape, for whatever reason, and the only thing standing in the way of him and the door was me. I braced myself for him to barrel into me, which he does without much hesitation.

However, given his recent lack of nutrition, there was little mass backing the force. I will admit, I wasn’t exactly skinny, but for once I’m glad of the extra weight, as, unlike Melissa, I’m not sent back flying. The inverse, in fact, is true, as the teacher was knocked back down to the ground.

Stunned, it takes a little while for him to collect himself, which I took as an opportunity to try to put out the fire before it spreads further. During the commotion, Melissa had been trying her best to fish the notebook out if the fire, almost burning her hands in the process.

I grabbed the pile of blankets and did my best to snuff out the flames, knowing that the attention of a fire alarm going off is the worst possible scenario in this current situation, as we would have to explain why three teenagers broke into an elementary school. That and the possibility of burning the school down.

Thankfully, the fire didn’t spread to the desk or anything else flammable and was out shortly after, after which the situation calmed down a little. The notebook, however, was long gone. Something about this mystery, however, called out to be solved before I dealt with the notebook.

With the panic still prevalent in his mind, evident in his fidgetiness, I decided it would be best if the three of us sat cross legged on the floor, hoping to indicate to him that I was going listen open-mindedly to whatever he had to say.

“Sir, why-… firstly what’s your name?” I asked him.

“My name is Josh.” he started before adding to Melissa, “It’s still Mr Rockatansky to you.”

“Nice to meet you, Josh, I’m Velma.” I replied, “Care to explain what’s going on here?”

He hesitated for a second, as though he was weighing the pros and cons, before simply shrugging, “Sure.”

He explained that he had been the music teacher here his entire working career, over three decades at this point (makes sense, Crystal Cove wasn’t exactly a large town and there was only one of each school stage), yet he just barely made enough to keep a roof over his family’s head and food on the table. He kept working here, though, as he just loved teaching children that much, something about the magic of seeing their eyes light up when they successfully play their first song. However, about six months prior, his wife had enough of this and decided to divorce him. Even though this was a cordial divorce, the attorneys both forced them fight over who owns what, so she took the house, the only kid still living in said home, and the car. On his meagre wage, he can’t afford to get a new house, or even a new flat, yet so while he was saving up, he was living in this abandoned classroom.

“Well, can’t you ask the principal for a raise?” Melissa asked, “She’s in charge of everything, after all.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, kiddo.” Josh answers sadly, “Plus, I’m fairly certain she’s noticed me living here, how could she not?”

“The thing is, sir, I bet she wouldn’t be too happy to learn that one of her staffers is in such a state, no offense,” I added, Josh simply nodded understandingly, “It’s a safety concern, especially with all the candles.-”

“I just didn’t want to siphon off the electricity,” he said anxiously, “The kids need it more.”

“Just go and explain your situation to her, okay, sir?” I insisted, practically shoving him outside the door in the process, “She will understand, I’m sure.”

“You promise?” he asked, shivering, or quaking, I wasn’t sure.

I grab one of the blankets from the floor and wrap it around his shoulders, “I promise.”

Almost like a child, a smile blossomed on his face, and he skipped off towards the principal’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading so far!
> 
> I actually made a longer chapter note for this chapter (with pictures!) on tumblr, if you're interested: https://moonrenegade.tumblr.com/post/629758365702209536/case-closed-chapter-28-notes-this-chapter-has
> 
> It basically just explains how I came up with the cakes and stuff.
> 
> Also how do you feel about longer chapters? I typically aim to hit 2000 words per chapter, but I've noticed recently that the word count has been increasing quite a bit (to the point where I've had to cut a chapter into two or three chapters to maintain the 2000 ish word count).  
> Would you like to continue with 2000 words, or would you like the longer chapters?
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	30. Chapter 30

_**Daphne, now:** _

Velma’s face was like glass. It remained so still I’d worried she’d died of shock right then and there. The tiramisu, which we had spent so long on, is ruined, and it looks like she is going to lose her bakery on top of it all.

The presenters also seem fairly confused, so I can only assume that they too must’ve seen the cakes beforehand. The judges I know for certain haven’t seen the cakes before the came into the tent a minute ago, but they do seem to be given Velma’s cake weird looks. The current state of affairs must be puzzling to all, I suppose.

“What happened…?” Sandi asks, inspecting her cake, “Did it collapse during the transfer?”

“It couldn’t have,” Velma replies melancholically, “It shouldn’t be that delicate.”

The monitor showing the audience reveals a group of people who are as equally shocked and discouraged as Velma is. Most of these people are there to watch Velma succeed, and seeing her flop this hard is probably the last thing they wanted to see. One of them even rushes out of the tent, phone in hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flutter of movement from the uncovered window. It’s not Christy, as this person is quite a bit smaller than her, so I’m assuming it’s the person who left the tent. I see their fading silhouette run as fast as their legs could take them towards the carpark. It seems unusual that someone would have such a big reaction to this, but I push the thought aside for now.

“Well, how about we start with Don’s cake first?” Paul asks, pushing Velma’s cake out of the frame a little.

Velma nods sadly, her nose sniffling slightly, and Don, glancing at her first to check, does the same.

“So, Don, what did you bring for us to judge today?” Sandi asks, occasionally flashing looks of concern over at Velma, who’s currently being whispering back and forth with Noel, presumably to come up with a solution to the current predicament.

Don does their best to seem cheerful and happy, but it’s clear even they are worried for Velma, “I made a Midwinter Candle Cake, it is one of my favourite recipes to make… em, it’s got fruit in it that’s been soaked overnight. Oh, and rum!”

“We all need a bit of rum after the day we’ve all had.” Paul mutters under his breath, adding louder, “That sounds delicious, why don’t we all have a slice?”

Velma, on the other monitors, wipes away a couple tears with the sleeve of her sweater, one I recognise from high school, and tries to collect herself. I hadn’t really looked at it too closely earlier as she had her coat or an apron over the sweater earlier, or I was focused on something else. The sweater had been too big in high school, but it seems like she’s grown into it more. Based on the condition the sweater is in, however, it doesn’t look like she had worn it in a while. I wonder a little, maybe she wore it for me, knowing I’d recognise it?

I’ll ask her about it later.

She smiles politely when she’s handed a slice of Don’s cake, even shooting them a thumbs up once she tries a bit.

“ _It’s good_.” I see her mouth to Don.

“ _Thanks!_ ” they mouth back, “ _Are you going to be alright?_ ”

Velma waves a hand dismissively at them, and Don looks even more worried than before.

“This cake is absolutely delightful.” Prue says, “It’s not overbaked, it’s not over seasoned, it’s great.”

“I’m hoping you’re aware that because you’ve had time outside of the tent to make this, the judging criteria will be stricter?” Paul poses this as a question, but his tone reveals that it is not, in fact, a question. Don nods anyway. “Good, because this cake is fine, and edible enough.”

“You don’t like it?” Don asks nervously, glancing at Paul’s face.

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s good.” Paul is being ‘mysterious’ (or at least he thinks he is), but it’s clear he’s only doing it for the cameras, and because the director is telling him to, “I’m kidding, it’s great.”

I’m assuming that when Julian had mentioned that his child had been practicing baking, this was probably the one Don had spent weeks practicing, given the reviews they were getting.

Again, through the uncovered window, I see the figure from earlier return, still running, but this time with a lankier figure in tow.

Prue turns to Velma’s disaster of a tiramisu and sighs, “Right, what did you make for us today, Velma-?”

“Wait!” a voice bursts out from just out of shot. They’re not mic-ed up, so I could only _just_ hear their voice being picked up by the microphones in the tent.

Everyone in the production tent leans forwards, straining their ears to hear what’s going on. Even the director is frozen, their continuous chatter into walkie talkie paused, simply watching the monitors to see what’s going on, and why the show is being interrupted.

The two figures I’d seen in the window emerge onto one of the monitors, revealing who they are: Emily and her boyfriend, Zayne.

“Before you judge Velma’s ca-, wait, no, … tiramisu,-” Emily halters a little as she corrects herself, but picks up the pace once again,- “you need to know something. Zayne show them.”

“Prior to you guys taking the tiramisu into your fridge, I took photos of it, and it was _perfect_. Look-.” Zayne pulls out his phone and shows us some photos of the tiramisu in the van, on top of a minifridge,- “see?”

“Oh, alright, that’s great,” Paul says, reaching out for the phone, “We’ll just use that as a reference for when we’re judging appearances, then.”

“Do you not want to know who did this?” Zayne asks, a puzzled look falling across his face as he retracts his hand away from Paul, “Because if this is sabotage, it’s really important to know.”

“Well, is it sabotage?” Sandi asks.

Julien nudges me, tearing away my concentration from the monitors, “Come on, let’s go.”

I give him a querying look, “What?”

Julien is already standing up, gathering his items, and extends his hand to me, “You don’t want to just watch everything through a screen, do you?”

_ **Velma, 1994:** _

With that out if the way, I turned to Melissa, who was poking at what remained of my notebook. A little bit of ash fluttered off, and I heard her whisper, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin it.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked her, trying my best to keep my voice from rising, “I really needed that notebook, it’s really important to me.”

“I’m sorry!” she bursts out, tears bubbling out, “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know that!” I snapped at her, “I want to know why.”

Out of nowhere, or at least it felt like out of nowhere, Shaggy and Scooby appeared at the door. Shaggy glanced at Melissa, who was curled up on the floor, crying, and up at me. He didn’t say a word as he and Scooby went up to her, gently placing an arm around her shoulder, forming a sort of emotional support cocoon, and wiping away her tears. As they both talked to her in hushed voices, just outside of my hearing, I couldn’t help but feel unwelcome. They were clearly doing the job _I_ should probably doing, as Melissa’s foster sibling, or whatever.

I didn’t really _want_ that responsibility. I’ve never been a big sister before this, and it’s kind of scary having to be in charge all of a sudden, not that Melissa ever listens to me. We bicker more than we talk. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a maternal person, and I only really agreed to this to make Mum happy. After everything she had gone through for me, this is the least I could do for her. She deserved to be happy, if nothing else, and if this is what does it, then so be it.

Eventually, Shaggy stood up, bringing Melissa up with him, and helped her explain to me what was going on.

“I’m sorry, Velma, I was-.” she sniffled a little, and Scooby licked her hand in a way I assume was meant to be reassuring, “-you seemed so happy, and I wanted to be happy too, so I thought _maybe_ if I solved my own mystery like you do with your friends, I could make my Mum proud of me, too.”

“Why are _you_ jealous?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “You have a dad, I don’t.”

She gave me a look, as though the answer should be obvious, “Why do you think I’m in foster care, and you’re not? They don’t remove children from their families just because one of the parents isn’t there.”

To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t really thought about it.

I had never asked, or cared, she had always just been a bit of a thorn in my side, so it had never occurred to me that she may have trauma of her own. Mum must’ve told me at some point, but I wasn’t really listening, or was distracted, or had just straight up forgotten. It almost hurt, then, thinking about how inconsiderate, entitled, and selfish I must’ve seemed like at first. No wonder she was so attached to Mum.

“I’m sorry-.”

“Don’t you dare f*cking pity me.” she snapped, “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Alright, alright, I won’t.”

Josh appeared behind me, at the door, beaming as wide as a highway, “Thank you!”

He wrapped his arms around my neck, hugging me, I think?

“You’ll never believe it, I got promoted!” Josh does let go of me at this point and shoved a bit of paper into my hands. He was so excited that he didn’t even notice Melissa’s emotional state, instead pulling her up so he can do some old-fashioned dancing jig with her. “She checked the papers, and apparently I was supposed to become Head of Music years ago when the last principal retired, but the paperwork for it got lost. She’s giving me the old tutor’s cottage!”

The paper he had pushed into my hands pretty much confirmed this, it even had a little note from the principal apologising for the hassle with a smiley face.

“Really?” Shaggy asked, matching Josh’s energy, “That’s great!”

“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but it’ll do until I get my own place.” Josh pulled Melissa into a hug, “And it’s all thanks to you two. I can’t thank you enough.”

“That’s alright, sir, it was no bother.” I said, smiling at him, “Isn’t that right, Melissa?”

She hesitated, glancing at me for reassurance, before nodding with conviction. “No bother at all.”

“Oh, and sorry about that notebook.” Josh added, scooping up his belongings from around the classroom, “Should I get you a new one? I can afford it now!”

I laughed dismissively, “Don’t worry about it, sir, it wasn’t anything special.”

“Are you sure?” Josh asked, not fully paying attention as he blows out his remaining candles.

“Yeah, are you _sure_ , Velma?” Shaggy asked, his tone asking more than his actual question seems to.

“Yep.” I said with as much conviction I could muster up, “I can make a new one, and it’ll be better, and neater.”

I couldn’t really remember what happened after that. I’m sure Daphne, Scooby, Shaggy, and I must’ve left Melissa’s school to go back to our own school at that point, but as nothing really eventful happened, it’s been lost to time.

According to my mother, Melissa and I got on in a weird, awkward way after that, like we were trying to avoid talking to each other, but wanting to at the same time. I don’t really remember it, and as Melissa went to her new adoptive family a couple days after that, we lost contact, even though she didn’t actually live that far away from us. I’m sure I would’ve seen her at some point throughout my high school years, but I can only remember vague encounters, and after a few years she disappeared entirely as she and her adoptive family moved somewhere out of state.

Maybe I should’ve been a better foster sister or made more of an effort to talk to her. Apparently we had a lot of similar trauma, although I didn’t know that at the time.

I remember lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, the day she left. The house had seemed quiet then, oddly quiet. She had stuck up glow-up luminescent stars and moons onto the ceiling, and the paint had become pockmarked by the paint being pulled away when she took the stars with her. She had left a letter, though, and I remember reading that over and over again until the words on the page became engraved into my brain.

For some reason, it had felt important to do so. I couldn’t for the life of me explain it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point during the week, I decided watching the new Bake Off episode was more important than writing the three essays due tomorrow and this week's chapter, so this chapter was almost a week late, sorry about that.
> 
> Anyway, what does everyone think of this series' contestants? And Matt Lucas?  
> -MoonRenegade


	31. Chapter 31

_**Daphne, now:** _

As we were leaving the tent, I notice that the main screen, the one people in the viewing tent see, is back to displaying Bake off’s logo as well as the simple message of “We’ll be right back! :)”.

Obviously, Velma doesn’t respond to my texts, but I wasn’t really expecting her to do so anyway. It just made me feel a little better. The though of Velma looking at these texts later when she’s looking back on the day makes me a little giddy inside, and I’m tempted to add a little “x” at the end of the chain of texts. Ultimately, I decide against it, but the idea sits and sulks at the back of my mind.

“You made a good call.” I tell Julius, who’s walking briskly ahead of me.

“Hm?” he turns around, eyes blinking with some confusion, “Did you say something?”

“You made a- never mind, it doesn’t matter, forget about it.”

A crowd had formed outside of the marquee, presumably some of the people from the viewing tent didn’t want to wait for the monitor to come back on and instead decided to try to see what’s going on for themselves. The silent masses collectively strained their ears to hear what was going on, which wasn’t much. The wind is howling, drowning out anything that could have been heard.

At the other end of the tent, I see the PA from earlier, Vicky, open a little flap. The seam was so small I had barely noticed it, but Vicky is in the process of stepping through, so it clearly wasn’t just a trick of my vision.

I poke Julius’ arm and point at the PA. As subtlety as we could, we snuck our way over there, slinking through the opening like cats who know perfectly well they’re not allowed at the cream but steal it anyway.

As we brush past the secret entranceway, I hear a quiet whimpering. I can’t tell what the whimpering is, but it almost sounds like a small child. Concern overrides curiosity, and I stick my head into the source of the sound to find sitting in the middle of the refrigerated room is a large basket of puppies. They’re not entirely new-born, but they’re not that far away from that stage, still relying heavily on their mother, who lies protectively next to the basket.

“Oh!” a gasp escapes from my lips, and Julius backtracks to check on me. I gesture for him to be quiet, and glance around at the staff for permission to approach. One of them, a short twenty-something year old with electric blue hair and round Harry Potter style glasses nods, laughing bemusedly at the expression on my face.

“Do you like dogs?” he asks, keeping his voice low so as to not startle the puppies, pulling his headphones down and gently placing the boom mic on the table in the corner of the tent.

I nod enthusiastically in response as one of the puppies spills out of the basket, one with floppy ears and eyes the colour of the man’s hair. The puppy starts gnawing at one of my fingers after I had offered them my hand to smell. I flop down to sit next to them and gently rub their little head.

“What kind of dogs are they?” I ask, “They’re really cute.”

Julius nudges me to remind me we need to return to our original mission. I nod, but turn back to the puppy.

“I don’t know. Their mother here, Cheese - my little sister picked the name -,” the man replied with a chuckle, - “is a mix of golden retriever and something else. We don’t know what the father is, although I suspect a husky, because Cheese likes the huskies, don’t you, Cheesy?”

Cheese looks at him with what I’m guessing is a smile, pausing to lick the hand the man was using to stroke her.

It feels weird calling him a man. He seems to be barely out of puberty, yet at the same time seems capable in a way not many twenty-year olds are. I wonder what his story is, and how he got here. And the blue hair. Surely that screams young queer teen? Or has social media been lying to me?

“Oh, I’m Daphne, by the way.” I say after a slightly awkward pause, “This is Julius.”

“Ray. Nice to meet you.” Ray extends his hand to shake my hand, then Julius’, “In fact, em… I was hoping to find these little ones a good home because I can’t keep all five of them, as much as I want to, so if you know anyone…?”

“I might, actually!” Makaela had mentioned a while ago that she was looking into getting a dog, and these looked absolutely delightful, “Let me get your number real quick, and I’ll pass you on.”

Julius shoots me a look as I hand Ray my phone, reminding me _once again_ that we need to get going.

I make sure to snap a quick photo with one of the puppies after getting my phone back, the blue-eyed one of course, to send to Makaela with the guy’s number, though.

“Do they have names yet?” I ask Ray, who shakes his head.

“Not yet. I was planning on giving one to my little sister for her birthday tomorrow, so I was going to let her pick one and name them for herself.”

Julius nudges me again, so I say goodbye to Ray, Cheese, and her puppies to go watch what as going on in the marquee.

If only I didn’t live in a tiny New York apartment, I would’ve loved to have provided a home for one of those tiny floof balls of adorableness. I allow myself a small moment of fantasy, in which I live in the semi-country, semi-city area like Crystal Cove, and I go hiking with my golden retriever and husky mix in the mountains every morning, and fresh bread sits on the table when I return.

My brow furrows, “fresh bread”? That’s a new addition to the fantasy. Usually it’s a sewing project I return to, not bread, but to be honest, bread sounds far more appealing.

As much as I love my cottage-core fantasy, I don’t think I could genuinely get by without internet, or access to the vibrancy of city life, at least not for long periods of time. Not on my own, anyway.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

It was a crisp January morning. Barren trees shivered in the wind; the leaves having been blown away months prior. The cold nipped at my fingers, and I tucked them in to my pockets, to no avail. It was the first day back after the winter holidays, and the thought of it terrified me.

Fred had called the night before, telling us he wouldn’t be able to pick us up, so I was making my way downtown, faces passed and I’m … school bound. There was some anxiety in my mind, I will admit, that my new friends had abandoned me as I hadn’t heard from any of them over the holidays, other than Fred’s phone call this morning. Surely at least one of them would’ve dropped by, or at least shouted “Merry Christmas!” at me from a distance, it’s not like where I live was some big secret: they had seen it every morning for at least a term when they came to pick me up. But no. Nothing.

Feeling a tap on my shoulder, I whirled around, expecting ghosts, ghouls, bullies, or monsters.

It is none of them.

Instead, a fluffy purple creature lunges at me with the ferocity of a snake pouncing on their prey.

“Hi, Daphne,” I said into the fluff, “Miss me?”

“Of course, I did!” she replied.

“Hm, I can tell,” I told her, “Please let me breathe.”

She let me go with a smile adorning her face, “So, how was your holidays?”

I shrugged, “Fine.”

This was technically true. As we weren’t fostering anyone, Mum had decided to get in as many hours in at work as possible while she had the chance, and she gets paid more for working over the holidays. She had been so busy with work and tired when she got back that we didn’t really have time for very many celebrations, the most she could manage was pulling out the presents from the wardrobe and presenting them to me under the tree. Which I had decorated. By myself.

The last thing I wanted was to let Mum know that it had been disappointed, especially given everything she’d done for me, so I had slapped on a smile and thanked her for the notebook she’d gotten me. I suppose the holidays weren’t that bad, I just missed human contact for the few weeks we were off.

“What about you?”

She went on for a little bit about parties, fundraisers and galas, a whirlwind of a rich person’s busy social life. She talked about people I’d only ever heard about from TV as if they were close personal friends, and more often than not they seemed to be more excited to meet her than she was to meet them. It was peculiar, then, to think about her relative unpopularity in school.

“Daphne?” I asked, “Why didn’t you go to a fancy private school? It’s not like your parents don’t have the money to send you, and St Augustine’s isn’t that far away. You would probably have friends who can relate to you more there than you do here at a state school…”

I had applied for a scholarship at St Augustine’s before we moved here last year (surprise, surprise, I didn’t get in. Something about a failed Public Speaking class. Probably just some good old classism again. We wouldn’t have been able to afford the uniform anyway.). We’d even taken a tour around the premises, and both Mum and my mouth had dropped at the sight of it. Just the courtyard was the size of a football field with expansive, maze-like gardens. I could very easily see a romanticised version of myself there, reading under the cherry tree, wandering the gardens, hiding away from friends in a game of hide and seek. Or maybe, in an ideal world, jokingly chasing around a girl, only to catch up with her, and…

I shook the image of Daphne kissing me from my mind, not that that’s something I regularly dreamt about, and focused on listening to Daphne’s answer.

“I don’t know, I guess I just liked this school better.” she replied, not really paying attention, “Plus, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you guys if I hadn’t.”

It almost sounded like she originally wasn’t going to include the rest of the crew in that sentence, judging by the rush she was in to add “guys”, making me wonder about her actual intention with that sentence. Something in my mind reminded me to stop analysing everything like I’m in a Literature class.

“Are your hands cold?” she asked out of the blue. When I nodded, she stuck her hands out, “Give here, let me be your heater.”

I obliged, and Daphne took one of my hands into hers, tucking it into her pockets. It was soft in there, and aside from a slip of paper and a candy wrapper, it was empty. For my other hand, she lent me one of her gloves.

“It’s almost like we’re made for each other,” I had joked, “Your warmth balances out my cold.”

“Or you’re a vampire.” she pointed out, “You already avoid sunlight and mirrors as it is.”

“Hey! Just because I stay up late doing homework like a _good_ _student_ ,” I mocked offense, “does _not_ mean I’m a vampire. Also, I wouldn’t have to stay up so late if we weren’t solving mysteries all the time.”

Daphne stuck her tongue out at me, “Aw, you just love me so much, quit kidding around with the mysteries and just ask me out already. “

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or genuinely wanted me to ask her out.

We had arrived at the school gates, however, so I didn’t have the chance to ask her. With a quick jerk, she slid our hands out of her pocket, releasing my hand into the cold again. As the bell rang in our ears, she waved goodbye, not noticing the small slip of paper fall from her pocket as she rushed to make it to History in time for the second bell.

It was a tiny square of folded up lined paper, stark against the greyish black of the tar of the school courtyard which pockmarked with dried up gum.

Without thinking about it, I picked it up, tucking it away into my bag. _I’ll return it to her at break_ , I told myself, _I’m only doing this to be polite._

Even though I had told myself this, throughout the duration of the next free study period and succeeding Chemistry lesson my brain agonised over and over about what was on the sheet of paper.

_It must have been important,_ my brain repeatedly told me, _there’s no way Daphne would keep meaningless scrap paper in her pocket for no reason. There_ must _be a reason._

Again, and again, I told myself, _no, wait_ , but it did extraordinarily little to stop the flood of inquisitiveness and questions in my mind. By third period, my will had crumbled, and I couldn’t resist the urge anymore.

I _had_ to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, all it took to get out of the corner I'd written myself into was to add puppies.  
> No need to kill my darlings just yet. :)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	32. Chapter 32

_**Daphne, now:** _

“We have reasonable doubt concerning Velma’s opponent.” Emily stated, hands securely resting on her hips. I could practically see the tweed and smoking pipe now, kind of like DisguisedToast playing Among Us as a crewmate.

“Who, Don?” Paul asks, brow furrowing as he glances at Don, who is in the process of being handed a slice of Velma’s signature bake by Velma herself, “Surely not.”

“No, they’re just her proxy because-“ Emily begins.

“- because she can’t bake for sh*t.” Zayne interjects, causing Emily to glance at him before continuing.

“-yeah, basically because she can’t bake for sh*t, so she paid Don to bake for her,-” Emily starts to pick up the pace from her usual slow trudge to a more animated and gesticulated sprint of a speech as she figures it all out in her head, the places falling into place as she speaks, “but when she realised too late that Don isn’t actually that great at baking, no offense Don-.”

“None taken!” they say, flashing a thumbs up after they put the forkful of cake in their mouth.

“- But when she realised this, she decided to give had to give them a leg up, -” Emily utters, trailing off a little as she comes towards the end of her revelation, - “so she must’ve decided to sabotage Velma’s cake.”

I’ve got to say, Emily reminded me so much of Velma back in high school when she figured out the solution to a mystery. Velma would also get gradually more animated and excited as the mystery unravelled itself. The first few unravelled themselves, like they were tutorials to a larger game, but after that it was almost always Velma who put the pieces together like Sherlock Holmes, but cuter.

_The kids are alright_ , I think, a smile spreading across my face.

“But who is “she”?” Sandi asks, “Not one of _us_ , right?”

“No, no,-” Emily shakes her head.

“Her.” Zayne and Emily say in unison as they point to the flap, which had just been opened to let Christy step through.

Christy, taken aback by the entire tent worth of staff, presenters, and other miscellaneous people staring at her as she enters, blinks blankly. Hesitantly, she murmurs something along the lines of: “Excuse me?”

“You sabotaged Velma’s cake, didn’t you?” Emily accuses her, “How _could_ you?”

“You have no proof!” she exclaims, puffing out her chest before adding, “Also no, I didn’t.”

Behind her, I notice one of Cheese’s puppies, the one with electric blue eyes, pad along playfully. They’re doing that small chonky animal walk where it looks like their head is too heavy for them to hold up properly, but they’re still determined to get to their destination.

I bend down to a crouch, reaching out for the small puppy to come to me. It’s so small, if someone didn’t realise they were there, the puppy could get hurt.

“Actually, I happen to have seen you leaving the refrigerated tent.” Julius pipes up, “And it wasn’t just me who saw you, either.”

“Pfft, like that proves anything.” Christy scoffs, “If you must know, I just went in there to check on Don’s cake, no nefarious actions at all.”

“Err, sorry to interrupt, but that’s not true.” a staffer interjects, “One of my staff reported seeing someone suspicious, matching your description, looking around and poking about in the fridges-.”

“So? Like I told you, I was checking on Don’s Showstopper-.”

“But Don’s cake was a spice cake, which doesn’t need to be in the fridge at all, it wasn’t even being kept in the refrigeration tent for that matter.” the staffer wasn’t taking any of Christy’s bullsh*t and simply continued to talk over her protests and excuses. They flicked at a page on their clipboard, adding, “And we already have you on the record for not properly alerting one of your contestants with enough time beforehand. It’s negligent at best, and plain evil at worst.”

Christy looks a little stunned, struggling to pull together another excuse, “I- I didn’t know it wasn’t there. Don didn’t tell me what kind of cake they were making.”

“You did, really.” Don also adds, “I sent you several emails about it, and you replied to most of them. Do you want me to pull them up?”

Christy glares at Don, as if the sheer venom in her eyes would be enough to kill and silence them. “You what? Don’t you dare betray me.”

It comes out as a hiss, her voice boiling over with fury. Her hair seems to crackle at the ends as she spews hate their way, “You were a sh*t baker anyway, you didn’t do your job, and now you’re showing me up at what was supposed to be about _me_? You were supposed to win, you’re useless,-”

Which is when she does the worst thing.

Out spills from her mouth, like a cat throwing up a putrid meal on snow white carpet, Don’s deadname.

It wasn’t really a surprise to anyone here, everyone knows Don’s deadname from them growing up in the shadow of Julius’s fame, but everyone knew to respect their pronouns and name, no one, as far as I was aware, would deliberately use Don’s deadname as a weapon against them. Except Christy, I suppose.

Stunned, no one moves. The deadname rings in my ears, repeating over and over despite my efforts to repress it with Don’s real name. Julius looks like he’s ready to punch Christy, and Christy stands there facing the anger with a smirk.

Before Julius, or anyone for that matter, can do anything, Don steps forwards. “That name no longer holds power over me.”

It’s the auditory equivalent of Don taking a sabre and slashing Christy’s neck in one fell swoop, causing her pride to crumble to its knees.

Christy takes a step back as Don continues, “You’re trying to use my past to hurt me, and I don’t think that’s nice of you to do. You should leave.”

Julius tries to subtly wipe a proud tear from his eye as he watches his only child learn to stand up for themselves, hiding a smile behind his hand.

“Fine.” Christy whirls around to leave, turning to face the puppy which had still been padding along happily towards me.

She hesitates upon seeing the puppy at her feet, glances at me reaching out for them, and then with a grin, kicks the puppy out of her way.

A gasp escapes unstifled. This wasn’t just a small nudge, this was a proper kick that sent the puppy up into the air, landing with a flop on the ground again.

Cheese, who had poked her head around the corner in search of her missing pup, witnessed the whole sequence of events, and was now growling viciously at Christy, blocking her exit.

Velma rushes to the aid of the injured pup, not even taking a second to question why there even were dogs in the tent, simply understanding that a creature needed her help, and nothing was going to stop her doing that. She scoops them up as gently as they could, placing them quietly on some of the gingham cloth used in the technical challenge. The pup whimpered the entire time, yelping as Velma stroked their back.

The rest of the staffers, even the ones dubious about Christy’s guilt regarding the sabotage and those who were “just more of a cat person”, all crowded around the flap, trapping Christy between them and Cheese, who was still barking away. Everyone hates people who hurt dogs, especially puppies, deliberately.

There are murmurs then, from the staffers of what to do. They clearly couldn’t just let Christy get away with this cruelty. One of the camera operators points out that cameras on standby probably caught the whole event, and a few peel off to check on them.

Sandi, Noel, Paul and Prue are discussing something in the corner of the tent, exchanging knowing glances.

Ray by now had come into the main tent to see what all the noise was about and joined me as I watched Velma tried to comfort the crying puppy with a couple of the other staffers.

“We should get her to a vet.” Ray says, not wasting a moment, “He looks badly hurt.”

“Where’s the closest place?” I ask, pulling my phone out to answer my own question, “Mighty Paws Veterinary Clinic is two miles away.”

“No, not there.” Ray shakes his head, “They’ve got far too many stories of them euthanising strays or lost pets, I don’t trust them.”

“Okay, well what about Trusted Pets Clinic?” I suggest, reading from the list on my screen, “They’re four miles away, though.”

“You guys can take my van.” Zayne offers, holding his keys out for me, “It’s a manual.”

Glancing around at my motley crew of puppy rescuers, none offer to drive, so I push the keys back to Zayne, “You drive.”

From there, we’re a mess of gathering things and rushing about. Velma scoops up the puppy and the gingham towel, frantically trying to keep them calm while being the exact opposite of calm herself. Ray goes to get the basket of puppies and call Cheese off Christy (the staffers with their eyes of fire should be enough to stop Christy from sneaking away for now), Zayne goes to get his van from where it’s parked, and I let Sandi and Noel of what’s going on so we’re not presumed missing.

Don stops Velma as we’re leaving, “I’m sorry, Velma, I know this whole contest wasn’t really fair on you from the beginning. They haven’t announced who star baker is yet, but I hope it’s you, I’m going to put in my best word for you.”

I walk a little ahead so I can’t overhear their conversation, wanting to offer them a little privacy. From a distance, I see the pair of them side-hug so as to not crush the puppy before waving each other goodbye, Velma jogs a little to catch up as Don retreats into the tent.

“I see you’ve made a new friend?” I say to her.

“I know, right?” she glances down at the tiny puppy she’s cradling in her arms, “You’re so cute!”

The puppy yelps a little as she squeezes a bit too hard, and Velma jolts back, tears in her eyes as she apologies profusely. With a smile, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and indulge in the fantasy for a bit.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

As it was a free period, I was just sitting with the folded-up piece of paper sitting on the table in front of me. My class notes were spread about me as I tried to decipher what they meant, but my heart wasn’t in it. When I actually glanced down at my page, I saw I had just scrawled nonsense words and doodled in the margins. If anything, they were worse than my original notes.

I glanced out the open window next to me, noticing only now that it had started to snow. The other students were also starting to notice, and a couple excitedly pressed their faces against the window, dreaming of building snow structures, waging snowball fights, and making snow angels on the ground. Again, the image of the piece of paper on the tarmac ran through my thoughts. Shivering, I closed the window, pushing thoughts of fun and the folded up piece of paper out of my mind.

No matter how hard I tried, however, I couldn’t focus on my class notes at all. There was a niggling voice in the back of my mind telling me that this torturous curiosity wouldn’t abate until I opened the note, so I caved in and obliged.

_If you want to ditch the loser crew, meet me after school in the old special ed building, third classroom from the left._

Confusion hit before the hurt. Was Daphne going to leave Mystery Inc? Who was this from? Had Daphne asked for this? If so, why??

Questions trampled over my brain, far worse than the curiosity regarding the _potential_ contents of the note from earlier. My mind was less overrun by trains of thought, more highway just before traffic gridlocks it, cars full of pondering doubts pushing the speed limit to outrun the rush hour trap of burnout.

Daphne, with perfect timing, appeared at the head of the table, resting her purple file binder on her hip as she tilted her head at me, “You alright, V? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Startled, I knocked the slip of paper from the table, sending my pencil case crashing into the ground after it.

“Sh*t, let me help you with that-.” she placed her binder on the table and bent down to help me pick up my things from the floor.

It takes me a moment to get over … whatever this feeling is. It’s like I’m watching an over the top teen drama, where the camera cuts around little slowed down motions, like her tucking her hair behind her ear, shrugging to stop her bag from slipping from her shoulder, the way her dress skims the floor as she crouches down. Sweet and pretty and kind, was the girl before me, not that I would ever have told her that out loud. The words repeated themselves over and over in my head, taunting me with their inability to be uttered.

It reminded me of that one movie from the eighties, Hairspray, where Link and Tracey meets for the first time.

Not that I like her. She’s my friend, this is just platonic. She doesn’t even like girls!

…right?

“Thank you.” I said, “You really don’t have to-.”

“What’s that?” Daphne asked, pointing at the slip of paper.

“N-nothing.” My heart skipped as I panickily told her, slipping the piece of paper into my sleeve, out of sight.

I don’t know why I did that. It would’ve been so much easier to just tell her, let her know what had happened, I wouldn’t even had to tell her I had read it, but…

I just couldn’t.

“So,” I tried to say as casually as possible, “Why are you here, Daphne? Normally on Mondays third period you’re usually elsewhere, right?”

“I have library sessions, yeah, but today I just walked out early, and no one stopped me.” she informed me flippantly as she pulled out a hand mirror from her handbag, checking her makeup as she talks to me, “Plus, some guys were being dicks in the library.”

“Oh.” I replied simply, somewhat disappointed for a reason I couldn’t quite place, “Okay.”

“And to make sure you weren’t all on your lonesome, I couldn’t stand the idea of you without me,” she added, sticking her tongue out at me, “Kidding.”

_Oh, Daphne, why are you like this??_

Thankfully, the guys returned from the lesson they had together, saving me from embarrassing myself in front of Daphne.

Not that it mattered.

They were formulating some kind of plan between them as they approached, arguing about this, that, and the other. I didn’t really pay attention: the guys arguing had just become background chatter and commonplace as they did it so often.

Daphne, leaning forwards, gestured for me to come closer, whispered into my ear, “By the way, I think Shaggy might like you.”

“Hm?” I had to blink away the shock.

“Look.” Daphne simply commanded. Complying, I glimpsed over at Shaggy, whose eyes darted away from me as he noticed my looking, a slight blush rising as he continued to argue with Fred.

“How cool would it be if you guys got together, and in, like, thirty years we would be married to each other and our kids would be friends, and-.” Daphne seemed to get lost in her dream of white picket fence families and movie-like romances, so she doesn’t notice that her wording could be misconstrued.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, Daph, but only two percent of marriages in the United States are between high school sweethearts.” Fred interrupted curtly, adding jokingly with butterfly kisses, “Although I’m willing to defy the statistics with you.”

Laughing, Daphne swatted his arm, probably deliberately more forcefully than socially appropriate as Fred winced and she glared at him.

“Anyway,” Shaggy took over the conversation, taking the burden of the slight awkward pause succeeding the swat, “We were planning to go to the cinema today, do you guys want to join? And what do you want to watch?”

Shaggy spread out the pamphlet he pulled out from his pocket. It was covered with highlighting and annotations that make me wonder what Shaggy’s grade would be if he put this much effort into his Literature class.

I nodded at them, telling them that I’ll have to let Mum know, but I should be able to go. Skim reading the pamphlet, I surveyed my options, noticing that Winnie the Pooh: Un-valentine’s Day had been circled and crossed out numerous times in three different coloured markers. The colours matched up to those in Scooby’s mouth, and Shaggy and Fred’s hands.

“What’s on?” I asked, “Or at least what were you guys thinking about watching?”

“Sherlock: Undercover roh-g!” Scooby suggested from beneath the table, spitting the marker out onto the floor to say so, before continuing to gnaw on it as before.

“We’re not watching that, I heard that it’s terrible,” Fred dismissed, “and who would want to watch a kids movie anyway?”

“I do!” Shaggy pipped up, “I want to watch the new Winnie the Pooh movie, Benji and Sugie went to watch it without me, and now I’m missing out on all of their new in-jokes.”

“Well you can do that in your own time,-” Fred crossed his arms huffily, clearly this argument had been going on longer than I originally estimated, - “we’re going to watch The Usual Suspects, aren’t we Velma?”

“That’s rated R, and none of us are over seventeen yet.” I pointed out, “Do you know anyone who would willingly accompany us to the cinema?”

Not even bothering to let Fred answer, I waved off the consideration with a simple, “Exactly.”.

“Hm, and also it doesn’t come out for another week and a half.” Shaggy leaned forwards, glancing again at the pamphlet.

“That too.” I agreed, sending Shaggy a finger gun, “What about Houseguest?”

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Daphne,” Fred said, ignoring my suggestion, “What do you want to watch?”

“No thanks, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it today,” Daphne replied, wincing slightly as she did so, “I’ve kind of go somewhere to be.”

“Oh.”

No one else said anything for a second, when Daphne, like a parent trying to cheer up her disappointed children, added, “I’ll try to make it if I can, but no promises.”

Eventually, it’s decided that we would be watching Sherlock: Undercover Dog, I don’t even know how Scooby managed to convince us, but he did, so we agreed to all meet at the school parking lot, where Fred would drive us to the theatre.

There was no sight of Daphne at the car park.

The boys bickered the entire way to the theatre, one angry at the other for caving to the dog’s whims, and the other for not caring about Scooby’s needs as a dog. There seemed to be more than what meets the eye with this argument, but I ignored it in favour of having an incredibly detailed conversation with Scooby in which we found creative ways to insult the both of them without them noticing that we were actually insulting them.

There was no sight of Daphne outside the movie theatre.

We waited for about twenty minutes, but we were going to miss the start of the movie if we didn’t head in, so Shaggy bought us three tickets (apparently the dog _had_ to have his own seat, much to the annoyance of the theatre staff, who would’ve preferred Scooby being left outside.) and we made our way inside.

There was no sight of Daphne in the foyer.

Fred, being the only one who had actually brought enough money (Scooby had left his wallet at home, Shaggy has spent all of his money on the movie tickets, and I hadn’t come prepared, not that I had that much money to spare to begin with), bought two buckets of popcorn for all of us to share, one salty, one sweet. He made sure we all went to the bathroom before we entered the actual screen room like he was our dad, Scooby and I had a heyday of insults for him for that.

Sitting there in the semi-darkness, staring at the huge bucket of popcorn on my lap (Shaggy and Fred were sharing, and Scooby was occasionally stealing from them), I felt very alone. It almost felt like Shaggy and Fred were on a date together, and I was third wheeling with Scooby.

I felt a familiar tap on my shoulder, “Hey, is that seat taken?”

Daphne was standing there, a slight nervousness painted across her face.

I wanted to hug her with every bone in my body.

“I thought you had somewhere to be?” I said, trying to hold back my childish delight as she flopped down on the seat next to me.

“I changed my mind.” she smiled at me, “I’d rather hang out with you losers.”

She stuck out her tongue at Fred, who had overheard the last part of the conversation, and nothing else.

Something told me that although this was brilliant right now, all that had happening was the pushing away of the inevitable, and this dynamic would come crashing down at some point.

Pushing the thought aside, I shifted in my seat to be more comfortable, and placed the popcorn bucket between me and Daphne. The movie was sh*t, but I didn’t care, I was happy exactly where I was, and I didn’t want anything to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter is a bit longer than usual, hope you guys liked it. :)
> 
> Also! I learned recently that based solely on word count, what I've written so far actually would count as a novel (and we're still on part one of three). 
> 
> Thank you for reading so far!  
> -MoonRenegade :)


	33. Chapter 33

_ **Daphne, now:** _

No one talks as Zayne drives us to the vet. The only voice came from the GPS, which occasionally chirped directions and distances. The van rumbled beneath my feet as Ray and Velma huddled in the back around the small puppy in her arms like it was a baby. As I turn back to the front, I notice myself starting to feel a little nostalgic. Back in high school, Fred drove a somewhat similar van to this, and we used to use it as our main mode of transportation. It carried us our entire way through those years of mystery solving.

Eventually, we pull up to a one-storey modern building with a large sign reading _Trusted Pets Clinic_ with two dogs and a cat on it. On one side, there was a large garden for pets to play in, hedges protecting them from the road on the other side. Through one of the floor to ceiling windows, I see a cat lounging idly on a couch, flicking its tail over a dog’s nose, much to their annoyance. The owner, talking to the man at the receptionist’s desk, doesn’t notice.

An elderly rabbit hobbled over to us as we all filed into the vet. The clinic has a small waiting area, and we outnumber the number of chairs available. Ray sets down the basket of puppies and crouches down next to the rabbit slowly, softly uttering comforting phrases as he settled into a cross-legged position in the middle of the floor. The rabbit, naturally nervous given that they are a prey creature, approaches cautiously towards his open hand. Cheese sniffs at the rabbit but ultimately decided that it’s not a threat, and so settles down next the basket.

The receptionist, noticing us enter, asks, “Are you all part of one group?”

Nodding, I reply, “Yes, we have a puppy that needs your help-”

“I am very sorry, but we have a limited capacity to stop our animals from getting frightened,” the receptionist explains, “I’m going to need at least two of you to step outside for a bit.”

As Velma and Ray seemed to have rooted themselves into the veterinary clinic, so Zayne and I share a look, decided to volunteer ourselves. We end up sitting outside on the little bench in the garden, Zayne scrolling through his Instagram feed while I sit twiddling my thumbs trying to think of a topic starter. What do teens like?! Is it memes? Memes about skeletons? Piss? Communism?

“So, memes, eh?” _F*ck, f*ck, f*ck, this was a bad idea,_ “What’s the big one everyone’s looking at now?”

Somewhat confused, Zayne glances up from his phone, “… Baby Yoda, I guess?”

“Ah, of course.”

_What the frick is a “Baby Yoda”??,_ I pondered to myself, having a vague recollection of people mentioning Yoda in high school. Star Wars was never really my thing, so I had never looked into it.

“If you’re looking it up, I recommend Know Your Meme.” Zayne says, eyes glued to the screen, “Just, y’know, top tip for you there.”

“How did you …?”

“Well, clearly you’re a boomer, or at least dress like one anyway,” Zayne says gesturing to my outfit, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you worked at the boomer equivalent of Buzzfeed, where your job is to be “down with the kids” but you’re getting older now, so it’s harder to do that.”

“I am not a boomer! Look-” I turn my phone screen to him, “I’m on the cusp of being a millennial.”

Zayne raises an eyebrow at me, “You’re such a Gen X.”

“What is that supposed to mean??”

Zayne is saved from answering (and probably getting something thrown at his head) by Ray and Velma, who exit the clinic empty-handed. For a second, my heart drops, expecting the worst. Silently, I vow to never forgive Christy.

Thankfully, Velma seems to be in a cheerful mood, and she fills in the gaps for us. Apparently, the vet took an x-ray of the puppy and found that they have a broken leg, so they put the leg in a cast and gave them pain medication for now. To avoid separating the puppies and their mother, the vet decided to keep the lot of them overnight so Ray will pick them up in the morning.

The drive back is much less tense than the ride there. Barren trees swoosh past, the pedestrians blurring into one gelatinous mass of hats, scarves, and gloves. A small child waves at the van as it passes, smiling when I wave back. The giddy feeling of being that age, sitting in the school bus to go on our annual trip outside of Crystal Cove, came back to me then. Even though we were certainly rich enough as a family to go to the Maldives, or London, or Japan, those school trips meant far more to me for some reason.

Something about the palpable excitement of escaping away from school, our parents, and the responsibilities that came with those, that just made it that bit more extraordinary.

It doesn’t take long for us to get back, or it at least it didn’t feel like it took a particularly long time, and we were back in the marquee in time for them to announce the winner.

A lot had happened while we were gone. The counters had been cleaned up, the cakes put safely away in display cases, with Zayne’s photo of Velma’s tiramisu printed out and stuck onto the glass with some tape. Christy was the only one sitting down in the marquee, and she had a police officer on either side of her. Both are ready to pounce on her if she even so much as blinks suspiciously. Astoundingly, the chief of police, who was standing in the corner of the room, was someone I recognised. It’s an older version Bobby Reeves, someone I went to middle and high school with. Winking at her, I revel in seeing her face drain of blood as she remembers exactly why she knows who I am.

F*cking cops. No backbone to speak of at all.

“Right!” Noel starts, “Now that everyone’s here, I have the pleasure of announcing… that the winner will not be revealed until the judges have tried both of the cakes.”

The crowd groans, collectively rolling their eyes, but lean in to hear the pronouncements. 

Even Paul, with his heart of stone and lily-white flavour palate, has nice things to say about Velma’s showstopper. Prue, naturally, spews forth with praise, insisting that each staffer gets to try some. They don’t have much of a discussion before Sandi is called to announce the winner.

“This Star Baker has consistently put in the effort, they worked hard to go that extra mile, and I think they deserve a hug and a round of applause, so everyone, put it together for …” Sandi pauses for dramatic effect, “Velma!”

Sandi, Noel, and Don all rush forward to give her hugs, quickly succeeded by some of the staffers. Velma seemingly overwhelmed by all of the hugs, slaps on the back, and congratulations, starts to cry, tears running down her smiling face. Christy slumps in her chair, pout deeper set than before. Prue sneaks another slice of Velma’s tiramisu, and Paul gives Velma the handshake she had been dreaming of since the beginning of the competition.

Not wanting to overwhelm her further, I keep my distance, knowing I can congratulate her later, on the walk to the bakery, or while we’re making those gingerbread houses. When she eventually glances over, I give her an encouraging thumbs-up before she disappeared again into the cloud of enthusiastic staffers.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“Mum!” I called as I entered the house, same as usual, “Daphne’s coming over tonight, is that okay?”

I could hear her talking to someone as I kicked off my shoes and dropped my bag off in the living room, “Mum?”

I find her in the spare bedroom, the foster kids’ bedroom, talking to a ten-year-old sitting on the edge of the bed, a little blue backpack at their feet. The girl seemed a bit small for her age, the fraying t-shirt hanging loosely from her shoulders. A red ribbon sits limply in a bow on top of her head, holding back her curly hair. Her eyes, the colour of maple syrup, flickered over to me.

“Oh good, you’re home,” Mum commented as I entered the room, “This is my daughter, Velma. Velma, this is Maddy, the new foster child.”

Maddy waves her hand at me without saying a word. Her face wasn’t exactly sullen, but it was certainly stoic, like she was a glass statue, trying her best not to break.

“Velma, I’ve got work in a bit,” Mum said, checking her watch, “do you mind making dinner today?”

“Can Daphne come over?” I asked, hopefully.

“Fine, but she has to be home by nine, it’s a school night.”

I felt a bit self-conscious talking to Mum in front of Maddy like that, but I was too busy rushing downstairs to call Daphne to care.

Mum left not long after that, and I’m alone in my room to hurriedly finish my homework before Daphne gets here. We were planning on doing our Chemistry project together, but to do that I had to finish off my literature essay first.

Recently, after foster kids started arriving, I’d gotten into the habit of keeping my door closed at all times, especially after the incident with Melissa. I could hear the door creak open behind me, and a short, startled squeak when I whirled around.

“Oh, it’s you.” I said to Maddy, who was standing in the doorway, idly playing with the hem of her shirt, “Do you want to come in?”

Maddy nodded and gingerly approached my desk, “What are you doing?”

“Homework.” I answered curtly, “Do you not have homework to do as well?”

“I don’t want to do it.”

“That’s your choice, I guess.”

We sat in the silence for a while, I struggled to focus on my essay, my ears too focused on listening out for Daphne’s usual three knocks on the door.

“Do you want something to colour in? A jigsaw? A puzzle-?”

“Who’s Daphne?” Maddy asked, ignoring my question.

“She’s one of my friends.” I replied, my analysis of The Picture of Dorian Gray could wait, “You’ll get to meet her later.”

“How did you meet her?”

She was real darn inquisitive, this one.

“She goes to my school. We have Chemistry together.” I said, “If you want you can invite some friends over. Do you know how long you’ll be here for?”

“I don’t have any friends.” Maddy’s face remained solemn, “And I’m sure it won’t be for very long. Dad promised that he would get himself cleaned up and back on his feet in no time. This is just a temporary thing.”

This belief seemed so steadfast I didn’t bother even questioning it. Three knocks then came ringing through the house, signalling her arrival.

Maddy followed me out of my room, but remained on the landing, just out of sight from the front door. Daphne, as usual, greeted me with an over the top hug and dumped her things next to the door.

“How long am I allowed to stay for again?” she asked excitedly, not giving my time to answer, “So what are we thinking? Basic, minimal effort poster or go all out on a video? Can I act in it??”

“It’s eight o’clock, which means we have four hours tops to get it done,” I told her, “But also I have to make dinner for the three of us, so make that two to three hours.”

“The three of us?” Daphne asked.

I gestured to Maddy, who quickly hid behind the stair railings, “The three of us.”

“Well how about we get dinner out of the way first, and then we can get the project finished off.” Daphne suggested, adding to Maddy, “Do you want to help out, sweetie?”

Maddy, nodding, joined us downstairs.

“So, what are we making?” Daphne asked, looking at me expectantly.

I had to think for a moment before asking, “How does mac and cheese sound?”

The two of them seem fairly enthusiastic about this idea, and I knew we could leave the baking until after we’ve finished our project, so we set about making exactly that.

Unsure of what Maddy would be able to handle just yet, I sent her and Daphne to get ingredients from the pantry while I started the cheese sauce. They returned a couple of minutes later with arms full of pasta, flour, and other miscellaneous ingredients.

Daphne sets a loaf of bread down next to the bin, “Your bread is out of date.”

Maddy looked absolutely affronted at the idea of throwing away bread like that and insisted on us letting her use it. Assuming that it was probably just for some kind of art project, I let her do what she wants. At the very least, this allowed me to keep an eye on her without having to make her do anything dangerous with fire.

Daphne and I were idly talking as she cooked the pasta and I did the sauce, planning what we were going to do for the project. Ultimately, we decided on a presentation on chemical bonds as it would be a fairly straight forward.

Glancing over at Maddy, I saw that she had torn the bread into small chunks and was soaking them in olive oil and salt. She had also preheated the oven, even though we had decided not to do the baking until after Daphne and I had finished the project. I shrugged it off, thinking that she was probably just hungry and left her be.

Once both the pasta and sauce was done, we incorporated them together and poured the mixture into four oven-safe dishes, ready to pop into the oven later. Maddy, watching us do this, added her olive oil and salt bread, which she had toasted in the oven. on top of each of the dishes.

“Oh?” Daphne asked, “What are you doing, Maddy?”

“Whenever I made mac and cheese at home, I would toast some bread and put it on top of it. Dad always said the added crunch made it better, and now we’re not wasting bread.” Maddy explained, munching away at some of the leftover bread chunks, “Also they make very good snacks.”

She was right about the bread chunks making good snacks, but it did concern me a little that this small child was cooking for both herself and her father, especially at such a young age. Coincidentally, Daphne and I shared a look, and it was probably then that we decided to protect Maddy with every will of our being.

We finished our Chemistry project fairly quickly, so after an early dinner, Daphne and I helped Maddy with her homework that she had been refusing to do. Her academic ability wasn’t great, but when we were helping her, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

Maddy fell asleep around nine, and Daphne elected to stay the night despite Mum’s orders because she “didn’t want to walk home in the dark” by herself, and there was no way Mum would argue that it’s a good idea to leave Maddy by herself, asleep or not.

I mean, it’s not like Daphne and I haven’t shared a bed before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's a little later than usual, I may or may not have had to hurriedly whip this chapter into shape...  
> (This week was exam week, which is never fun, but I think I did okay.)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Not next week, but the week after's chapter is certainly one I'm looking forward to you guys reading. It's the one that I wrote back in December when I first had the idea for this fic. ;)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	34. Chapter 34

_**Daphne, now:** _

I grab Velma’s coat from the make-shift locker room in the Church and make my way over to the marquee entrance to wait for her. I feel a bit like a limousine driver holding up a sign at the airport, not entirely sure who I’m looking for, hoping whoever it is will find me first. It hadn’t hit me until I saw everyone congratulating her for winning Star Baker, but Velma isn’t the same person she was in high school. I don’t know why I even expected her to be. Although traces of her remain, high school Velma is gone for good.

But y’know what, I don’t think I mind that much. Or at all.

“Congratulations.” I tell her as she approaches me, handing her the coat, “You did great.”

Velma's still wearing the apron, even though she had the option to take it off. She’s acting a bit like a child, refusing to put on their coat to trick-or-treat because it would hide their costume.

“Thank you,” she says, shrugging on her coat, not clarifying if she meant for getting her jacket or the congratulations, “Shall we walk?”

As we walk back to the bakery, our hands repeatedly brush against each other, but neither of us dares bridge the gap, no matter how much the cold nibbled away at our extremities.

_The sensible decision_ , I remind myself, _is to avoid getting hurt. Survive until Christmas Day, then retreat to the relative safety of your New York apartment, where heavy things like_ emotions _cannot hurt you._

“Hey, look…” Velma trails off, pointing at the park down the road, “Do you remember how, in the summer, we used to have picnics there?”

“Yeah, I remember.” The picture I found in the attic swirls through my mind, forcefully dragging up memories, some good, some not so good. “Is the tree still there? The one that…- the one next to the river.”

“Yeah,” Velma sighs, “They put a plaque there a couple of years ago, some historian dug up the story and insisted on it.”

“Do you want to go look at it?”

Velma shakes her head, “No, it’s too late, now, the park at night freaks me out.”

It’s not that late, only six-thirty, but I let it go. Sunset isn’t that long away, and I know exactly why she doesn’t want to be there after dark. There’s nothing scarier than confronting the past, is there?

That and the rumours of a crazed axe murderer who lives in the woods that’s stuck around since our parents’ childhoods.

Plus, we need to get that gingerbread made!

“What are they like now, Shaggy and Fred?” I ask, “How are they?”

“Well, Shaggy owns his own catering company now, and I think I’ve told you about Fred being a writer?” Velma offers, glancing at me, “They’ve done really well for themselves.”

I nod, “Good for them.”

“Yeah, out of the four of us, I’ve probably done the worst, career-wise.”

“But what about the bakery?” I ask, “I’d say that that’s no small feat.”

“Daphne,” Velma starts, “The bakery is losing money and a lot of it. Why do you think I live in the tiny apartment above it instead of just renting it out?”

“To be fair, my apartment isn’t that much bigger-.”

“Yeah, but you live in New York, that’s different.”

Neither of us says anything for a bit. The silence is deafening, but the interruption is like a nuclear blast, ripping through buildings and lives.

“In an ideal world,” Velma asks, her eyes trained on the floor, “where money doesn’t matter, what would you rather do? As a job?”

“I … don’t know.” I answer painfully honestly, “I wish I could say “exactly what I’m doing now! :)”, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. I lost my faith in humanity as soon as I entered that seedy world.”

“Don’t you work in private equity?” Velma poses, slight uncertainty on her face, “I knew it wasn’t a great place to work, but I figured there are worse industries. Like journalism.”

I’m saved from having to answer due to the appearance of a dog. It's running towards us so quickly that its fur seemed to be blowing in the wind. I’m temporarily transported to a meadow on a lovely, sunny day, waist-height plants gently dancing in the breeze. Bright green grass cushions my steps, making it feel like I’m walking on clouds, and the massive expanse of blue above contains crayon clouds, like that drawn by a child. Red, yellow, and pink flowers wink at me, hiding their faces behind bonnets of petals, giggling when I lean in closer to get a better look at them. The sun, blazing above, waves hello with a smile, gesturing below at the river, where a small child is collecting rocks. She looks up, noticing me, and holds up a rock for me to take. It’s small and round, and fits perfectly in the palm of my hand like it was always meant to be there. I slip it into my pocket and glance around for the dog again.

The red ribbon around the dog’s head loosens, the image of the meadow disappearing with the ribbon as it flies away in the wind. I try to follow it with my eyes, but the darkening sky swallows it up.

Velma mumbles something indistinctly as the dog approaches, the magic of whatever just happened, fading away. I catch the dog in my arms and restrain them from creating further havoc or running into the road. Checking the collar, I could’ve sworn for a moment it said “Maddy” before it shifted into “Rex”.

“You saw that, right?”

“Saw what?” Velma replies, the truth is discernible on her face.

The owner, bedraggled from chasing after their dog, leash limply held in their hand, thanks us profusely, clipping the dog back in.

“I’m so sorry, Rex likes to escape sometimes.” the owner says, their accent tinged with a slight Scottish note, “He can be a real nightmare, but he’s a sweetheart, usually, aren’t you?”

Velma crouches down to stroke the dog while I make some small talk with the owner.

“So, what type of dog is Rex?” I ask, noticing Velma still mumbling away at the dog.

“He’s a bearded collie, aren’t you Rexie?” the owner says, ruffling the fur on the dog’s head, “We should probably-”

“How old is he?” I interrupt, trying my best to buy Velma as much time as feasibly possible, “He seems quite young.”

“Rex is three years old, four in February,” the owner obliges, “A lot of bearded collies are quite excitable, and Rex is no exception.”

Velma seems to be down with whatever she was doing, so I let the owner go, waving them and the dog goodbye.

“If only I could get a dog of my own…” Velma sighs, “Too bad I live in such a tiny apartment, else I would’ve adopted one of Ray’s puppies.”

“What were you doing with that dog, Rex?” I blurt out, continuing, “Because it looked like you were talking to it, and I can’t help but be at least a little concerned.”

“I was just saying hi.”

“Sure.” If Velma says she didn’t see anything unusual, and she was doing something perfectly ordinary, then I might as well just dismiss the whole incident.

… Right?

_**Velma, 1995:** _

At the corner of Claremont Road and the main road, there was a dilapidated house. The whole estate had been built in the eighties, and as it had been fairly close to the school and had links to public transport, all of them had been snatched up immediately, at a hefty price of course. All that is, except number 53.

Number 53 had stood abandoned almost entirely since its construction. Paint peeled from its window frames, the fence was overgrown, causing the plants to create another more monstrous boundary spilling over of the original. The gate, peeking through the overgrowth, is boarded up with rotting planks of wood. Through a cracked window, I could see the faintly pinstriped curtains which had holes the size of a fist. A family had lived in there for a while, but they moved away after less than a month of living there. No matter how hard I looked, I could never seem to find any information about the house, or the family that had lived there.

The library came up with minimal information and the internet had no answers for me. The best I could manage was finding out the name and rough address of one of the family members, so I had sent them a letter.

It’s been three weeks since then, and I currently held the letter I had gotten in response in my hand as I stared at the house, as though the letter was the weapon that was going to open up all of its secrets.

Naturally, I hadn’t read the letter yet.

It had only arrived that morning as I was leaving, so I was planning on reading it when I get the chance.

The hole-ridden curtain twitched, sending a shiver down my back. Turning away hurriedly, I scampered off to school before I miss registration.

At recess, I locked myself into one of the bathroom stalls, tearing open the envelope as quickly as I could. As I skim read the words on the page, I knew we had the start of a mystery dawning, so I went to let the rest of the crew post-haste.

Fred, as usual, had an excuse for why we shouldn’t. “This isn’t mystery worthy.”

Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, and Daphne was our usual table by the window. Daphne was glancing out the window, not fully paying attention. Fred was paying even less attention, his reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose as he turned the pages of his copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. It was upside down, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Shaggy glanced at him nervously, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Mum’s still banned us from “playing detective”, so we can’t.”

“I’ll get you more Scooby Snacks.” I offered nonchalantly, much to the reassurance of Shaggy and Scooby, who return to their usual casual attitude. Crossing my arms over my chest, I prepared myself for another battle with Fred, “It’s more mystery-worthy than _your_ idea.”

Fred, ever the king of drama, slammed his hands down on the table, pushing himself upwards so he could be right in my face.

“My uncle Count von Jones is a very worthy mystery. He lives in a castle near a factory that makes specialised coffins and runs a museum!” Fred exclaims, “There’s no way he’s not a vampire, and if we just paid him a little visit I would finally have enough evidence to prove my cousins wrong.”

“We’re not chasing after a mystery just because you had a squabble with your cousins.” I told him curtly, “We literally have a mystery on our laps, but you want to travel 2,834 miles to find a mystery when we’re barely into a new semester?”

“You know the exact number of miles between California and Philadelphia?” Fred asked an eyebrow raised, “Nerd, much?”

“No, actually that’s the number of miles if you use the I-40 E.” Fred looked at me smugly as I said that, knowing full well that I’m only proving his point, “A good debater comes prepared.”

“Well, anyway, we haven’t discussed the other mystery ideas,” Fred pointed out, peering over at my notebook, “Shaggy and Scooby, what was your idea again? All Velma’s got down is “kitchen”.”

I glared at Fred, covering my notes with my arm.

“Scooby and I found out that the cafeteria might be serving beef infected Mad Cow Disease-” Shaggy goes on about his food-related conspiracy theory, while the rest of us, Scooby included, doze off and stop listening.

Eventually, Shaggy ran out of steam and allowed Daphne to pitch her idea, further investigating the school.

“We never got to the source of the scream we heard, did we, Velma?” she said, turning to me for reassurance.

“I thought that the scream was just grey foxes mating.” I pondered, “They’re known for making high-pitched scream-like sounds during sexual intercourse.”

“Just call it sex,” Fred demanded.

“But grey foxes’ mating season was in early spring, not early September.” Daphne highlighted, “It couldn’t have been foxes.”

“We could do more than one.” Shaggy said, scratching behind Scooby’s ears, “It’s not like we have to do only one mystery at a time.”

“Does that mean we can go to Philly after all?” Fred asked excitedly, “I can drive, we could make a weekend out of it.”

“It takes forty-two hours to drive there, dumbass,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the look of disappointment that falls across his face. “Unless a weekend is longer than four days, we’re not going to get more than half a day there.”

“We could fly there!” he suggested desperately.

“I can’t afford that,” I tell him.

“And I don’t have a passport,” Shaggy stated.

Fred groaned, burying his face in his arms on the table.

“Well,” I said, “My mystery first?”

The rest of the crew agree, voting in favour of doing both Daphne and my mystery this semester. We agree to meet at the library after school to get more research done, as well as to sleuth around the librarian’s memory of the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Election Day is not that far away, it'll be done and over by the time the next chapter comes out.  
> At least that's something to look forward, I suppose?
> 
> We will get the orange out of the White House. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	35. Chapter 35

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Right!” Velma says as she pulls the spare apron from the pegs on the wall and throws it to me to put on. Emily must’ve come in at some point after we had lunch because everything had been cleaned and shut up, ready for tomorrow morning. “Time to bake!”

The spare apron was basically mine at this point, and I joke to Velma about embroidering my name along the front.

Emily must also have heard about Alexi’s birthday party as a note sitting on the counter, alerting us that there was pre-made dough waiting for us in the fridge.

“I need to give that child a raise,” Velma says, pinning the note to the corkboard. She scrapes what little of her hair can be tied into a ponytail back, gesturing with her spare hand to grab her recipe book from the shelf.

She opens the large recipe book with a flourish and turns to a page entitled “Gingerbread houses”, briefly skims the pages, nods a few times then goes to the oven, muttering “200 degrees, fan.” as she does so. Velma hands me a list of ingredients and measurements, asking me to weigh them out and mix them in a large bowl.

“Sure!” I say as I reach for the flour. It’s an easy enough task so I get going without needing much assistance from Velma. Previously, I had had to lean on Velma like a crutch to get me through the tasks she gave me, but I might be getting the hang of all this baking stuff.

Velma starts melting something in the pan and it fills the room with a sweet sentimental smell. “Is this the gingerbread recipe we made with… when we were sixteen?”

I left a space for the name I daren’t utter, and Velma pauses before answering. The smile returns promptly enough, however, so perhaps the repeated absence is starting to desensitise her a bit. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

“Seventeen, and yes. I tweaked it a little bit, but otherwise, it’s the same. Thought it would be a good time to bring it back, good memories and all.” she smiles at me like she was trying to impress me subtly and got caught. I suppose in a way, she did.

This is the second time today she’s made something relating to … _that_ , and I can’t help but wonder if something was causing it to crop up more.

Something more than just my presence.

The flour explodes out of the bowl as I think this, spraying the counters when I turn on the electric whisk. “Woah! Okay, em-!”

Velma hurriedly comes to my rescue, laughing, turning the speed down and placing a hand on my hand on the whisk to guide me.

“Slow and gentle,” she tells me.

“Slow and gentle,” I repeat, and she smiles. At this point, I don’t need her to help me, but I like her hand on top of mine, so I don’t say anything. We probably would’ve stayed like that had not the sugar melting mixture started to burn.

“Why was it even on the highest speed-? Oh, jinkies!” Velma exclaims, her hand jumping back as she rushes to take the pan off the heat. “Hot stuff coming through!”

I move to the side as she pours in the mixture. “Could you grab a spoon and stir this?”

It occurs to me that I don’t know how to bake. Forget what I thought earlier, that must’ve just been Velma being nice and giving me all the easy tasks. A three-year-old could be doing what I’m doing and do it better no less. I have no idea why she told me I was more helpful than Emily, from what I saw today, aside from the occasional disappearance, Emily was pretty helpful and efficient when it came to the running of this bakery. Velma must notice this because she comes over to help.

“That’s not really coming together, is it?” she frowns, thinking for a second, before she splashes a tiny bit of water into the mixture, after which it starts to cooperate. Like magic.

Velma smiles at me. “Well, will you look at that.”

We both paused, once again thinking about it.

“I didn’t-.”

“Yeah.”

She clears the counter of the flour from earlier and spreads a couple of sheets of baking paper across the table so we can roll out the dough. “About 6 millimetres thick,- ” she instructs me as she hands me a rolling pin, - “like three nickels stacked on top of each other.”

We both get to work and chat idly for a while about the past, avoiding the big and messy subjects so as not to ruin the mood.

“Do you remember the time we sprayed Fred’s van?”

“What, the ‘free candy’ van?” Velma laughs. “My mum was _so_ creeped put by it before she knew it was Fred’s, - even more so afterwards.”

“Yeah! The white was boring anyway, I’d say we improved it.” I say, accidentally gesturing with the rolling pin, nearly taking out a window, “Plus, our design was advertising Mystery Inc.”

We’re doing increasingly more complicated things, I quickly lose track of time, and what we’re doing. For the most part anyway, Velma did the hard bit while I mixed or did decorations. Kind of like a child, but you know what, it was fun, and I enjoyed it.

It’s an impressive gingerbread house, of course. Nothing less than perfect for A Piece of Cake’s display gingerbread.

That sounds too corporate. It’s hecking beautiful, and I tell Velma as much. The walls are decorated in swirls of pearly white icing, with “stained glass” (melted hard-boiled candy that Velma had made earlier) window were nothing short of brilliant. Also, the multicoloured icing roof (my idea) is the gayest thing in the entirety of Crystal Cove, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Peter drooling at it with envy tomorrow morning. We’d scattered some gingerbread trees around the house, so it looked like it was a small cabin in the woods (not in a horror movie way) and even sprinkled a light dusting of powdered sugar around as if it had been snowing.

It would never snow here in real life. At least not this year, although climate change might change future predictions, though.

We still had a couple of those gingerbread Christmas trees left, so we sat with our backs on the cooling oven door to eat them, watching the last of the Christmas shoppers passing the window.

“Y’know, I was dreading coming back to this place, Crystal Cove I mean,” I say, picking at my Christmas tree. “I suppose I still felt guilty about… Yeah.”

“Is New York nice?” Velma asks, leaving the topic up in the air. It wasn’t the reply I was expecting, so I’m a little taken back.

“I don’t know.” I laugh awkwardly. “It’s weird, I’ve lived there for nearly two decades, god I’m old, but it’s never really felt like home.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It always feels like somethings missing. Like gingerbread without icing.” I raise my gingerbread to emphasise the point.

“Maybe you’re lonely,” Velma says quietly, staring down at her tree.

“Yeah, maybe.” I smile at her. “If only I could bring you and your bakery, back to New York with me.”

She smiles, hopeful, but unsure. “You could always stay here? With our combined income, we could probably rent or buy a larger space, and we could adopt one of Ray’s puppies, and you could help out in the bakery in your spare time.”

There’s something she’s missed off the list, and although it’s not _the_ big messy topic, it’s still an _emotions_ thing, so I don’t pry further.

My smile fills with sadness. _If only_. “I wish I could, but…”

“Your job?” she sounds so disappointed in me. Whatever it was she wanted me to learn through my time with her, I clearly hadn’t learned it, and it stung, a little, to know I’d let her down.

“Yeah.”

I point out how Velma had powdered sugar in her hair, and we laugh. I move to stand up, but Velma grabs hold of my arm, pulls me down, and swipes a bit of icing onto my nose.

I laugh, in shock.

Mocking offence, I retaliate with icing of my own. I like this game. It’s a battle now: who can get the most icing onto each other without also getting hit. We’re crying with laughter, this whole scene is reminiscent of when we were younger, it’s almost as if the last twenty-four years never happened. Velma grabs the bowl with the spoon and yields it, a glint shining in her eye.

“Amateur!” I smirk, grabbing the other bowl, scooping a whole load of icing, and hurling it at her. She laughs in surprise and attempts to hit me with icing back. She fails.

Velma giggles as I pin her hips against the oven door so I could get a clearer shot with the icing. A strand of her hair falls in front of her face, so I gently brush it behind her ear. The dab of icing is still on her nose, so I point it out, laughing. She scrunches up her nose, and her freckles are hidden by a blossoming blush. The silence between us stretches out and envelopes us in a hug. I suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation of how … amazing this person is. She’s so smart and kind, and beautiful, and-

She leans forward and kisses me, right on the lips.

She tastes like cinnamon and icing, and I can’t get enough of her. I never, ever want this moment to end.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“I want this bit to end,” Fred whined, elongating his last word as he leaned back in his seat, “Why can’t we just storm in already? We did that at Andy’s.”

“Nope. I researched for _hours_ before we even got to the house.” I told him, “Can’t you remember how we had the floorplans? And the ideal entry points?”

“Hm, but you did that on your own.” he pointed out, “Why couldn’t you do this on your own again?”

“Because if we want to do two mysteries this semester, we need to hurry the frick up.”

Fred rolled his eyes but returned to the book on the table in front of him.

We were all at the public library after school, where we had been since school finished three hours ago. Sunset was slinking in, whispering in our ears to give in, to go home. Fred seemed to have gotten the message loud and clear and was not bothering to be quiet about it.

The regular patrons, Dorothy and Michelle, had been occasionally shooting glares at him. The elderly pair always sat in here in the afternoons, Dorothy knits something while Michelle reads. They weren’t married, but if they could, they would be. Of course, everyone is supportive, except for a couple of dickheads who knew how to keep their mouths shut, and Laurence.

Laurence, the clueless numpty he is, did a finger wave at Dorothy in what I’m guessing was supposed to be a flirtatious way.

“Forty years, and he still doesn’t get it.” Dorothy leaned over to tell Shaggy, “Also you’ve dropped a stitch, love.”

Shaggy and Maddy were having Dorothy teach them how to knit, I believe they were all making a sweater for Scooby together, instead of helping with research. Scooby sat at their feet, idly playing with a spare ball of yarn.

Daphne was a little more helpful, she had managed to track down some records going off of what the letter had told us, but they were all fairly vague to protect people’s privacy. The letter, written by the eldest child of the family that had lived in the house, had informed us of some of the events that lead to their swift exit.

According to the letter, the house had been strange since arrival. The parents had been told that the house would be empty of all furniture, yet two wardrobes and a hallway table were waiting for them when they arrived in addition to a dozen or so clocks. The wardrobes had been empty aside from a few dusty coat hangers, but the hallway table had its drawers stuffed full of thousands of pounds of old British money. The clocks had all stopped at exactly sixteen past two, which was the exact time the family had opened the door of the house.

Uncertain of what to make of it, the family had chalked it up to pranksters welcoming them to the neighbourhood. The Miller family, which consisted of two parents, Julie and John, and three kids, Nicole, Ashley, and Sam, settled in for the night. Sam, who was two, had nightmares the first night and kept insisting that a stranger was in the house. No one took him seriously until they started noticing that in the morning, some things would be out of place. Nicole, who wrote the letter, told us that knives were what moved around the most.

Sam, she wrote, was about to start college now, but he still sometimes had nightmares about the tall woman handing him a lollypop, telling him that he better keep quiet if he didn’t want his family to get hurt.

On the third week of them living there, a snowstorm locked all five of them in the house as the snow nearly reached the second floor. They were alright for food, as they had done the weekly food shop the day before, but both electricity and gas had been cut off for the three days they were trapped. At first, Nicole and Ashley had been delighted (what kid doesn’t love a snow day?) but they quickly realised that without TV or the ability to go outside and play in the snow, snow days aren’t that fun. The first day had been somewhat fun, however, as they had all played board games together and eaten only junk food as they waiting for the electricity to come back on.

Julie had allowed them to help peel down some of the wallpaper the builders had left up, under which they found messages painted onto the wall with red paint. Some were innocuous, “Seb was here”, but others were a lot more threatening, “leave now”, “14:16”, and “you’ll regret this”.

Night-time, Nicole penned, was the worst. They only had two candles to light the way with, and Julie and John, rather sensibly, had not trusted their children (who were only seven, five and two years old at the time) to be careful with open flames after one of them had burned a hole the size of a fist in one of the curtains.

By the second day, John had started hallucinating. They still weren’t sure of what had caused the hallucinations, but they were very violent, and John had appeared on numerous occasions just started screaming for what felt like hours. Yelling at an invisible figure to vacate the premises, and nothing any of them said could make him stop. John, who was usually a very nurturing and caring man especially towards the children, didn’t stop even after he had reduced little Sam to tears.

Finally, after three days of that nightmare, a neighbour scrambled to their rescue upon seeing the two girls putting a sign up on the second-floor window. Apparently, due to an administrative error, the house they were living in had still been listed as being empty and no one had noticed as the Millers had largely kept to themselves.

After that incident, Julie had decided that perhaps small-town life was not for them, and they moved back to Indiana.

Daphne had managed to find records of the snowstorm as well as some of the records from around that time. As I looked over the records, I noticed that the record showing the vacancies of the houses on Claremont Road had a slightly odd detail. As it was only a photocopy of the original document, I couldn’t investigate it properly, but there was a small line along the side of the box listing the home as empty, a shadow cast on the paper. It appeared as though someone had stuck a small slip of paper over the original record, a potential sign of foul play.

I approached the librarian in the hopes of getting some answers, instead, I received an armful of books and hearsay about the family.

“The dad had some kind of sleep disorder, I think…” he trailed off, “You would have to ask his old doctor, I think she still practices, I’ll find you her card.”

The librarian disappeared under the desk before popping back up with a shiny cream card with “Dr Stella E. Blackwell M.D.” embossed upon it. He placed the card on top of my precarious stack of books, tapping it twice.

“She’s an odd lady, that Dr Blackwell, but don’t let her scare you off.” the librarian said, “Oh! And about the record you asked about, I suggest you go talk to councillor Mr Hyde. Victor was the secretary at the time of the snowstorm, so he would have been the one dealing with the records.”

While the librarian was talking, Daphne whipped out her camera and snapped a photo of me.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, “What was that for? I wasn’t ready.”

“You just looked cute, that’s all,” Daphne said, sticking her tongue out at me.

Daphne had received a prototype camera from her dad for Christmas, as she was taking every opportunity to use it. She’ll probably get bored of it in a few months, but in the meantime, she was snapping photos of Fred buried nose-deep in a book, of Maddy, snoozing on Shaggy’s shoulder, of Dorothy laughing at the mess of a sleeve Shaggy had made.

“I think it might be time to call it a day, guys.” I told them, scooping up the napping Maddy, “We can do more tomorrow when we’re well-fed and conscious.”

We gathered up our things, said goodbye to Dorothy and Michelle, thanked the librarian, and headed home with the stack of books. Maddy remained asleep for most of the ride home, and I had to gently wake her up as Fred eased into the driveway.

Maddy and I waved at the van as it drove off, then headed inside before the cold had a chance to start creeping in.

“Mystery solving is fun,” Maddy said, a little sleepily as I dumped the books onto the dining table.

“We didn’t really solve a mystery; we were just doing the research side of it.”

“I know but hanging out with friends is nice.” she flopped down on the sofa, nodding off once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIDEN WON! :)
> 
> Also, Daphne and Velma kissed! :)  
> I've been planning this moment from the very start (I think, anyway), so it feels hecking great to finally get it out there. 
> 
> Just an overall good week.  
> Thank you for reading so far!  
> \- MoonRenegade :)


	36. Chapter 36

_**Daphne, now:** _

Sunlight smacked me in the face, waking me from a fairly light sleep. Deja-vu seeps into my thoughts as the birds chirp outside. The white fluffy sheets are twisted around my legs, forming a cocoon of warmth. My phone, once again, is dead. I need to get that battery checked. Groaning, I stretch my arms out above my head and nearly whack Velma in the face as I sit up. The panic settles in as I realise that I’m in Velma’s bed, only half-dressed.

“But you have a boyfriend!” I blurt out without thinking, gathering the duvet around me to cover my body, “You-… you can’t…”

“What are you talking about?” Velma seems bewildered more than anything else, “You remember coming here, right? You don’t have a concussion, do you? You’re not supposed to sleep if you have a concussion!”

Velma seems to be very quickly spiralling into a panic cycle, so I reassure her that I don’t have a concussion that I am aware of. She asks me what I _do_ remember.

“I remember you kissed me, and we- …did we do this whole thing?” I ask, gesturing to the crumpled sheets around me.

“No.” Velma replies, climbing into the bed next to me, “After we kissed, you refused to talk to me, saying simply that we would talk in the morning when you’re soberer and less tired. You fell asleep here after having _way_ too much wine. I slept on the sofa, don’t worry.”

“Oh…”

“Also, what do you mean, I have a boyfriend?” she questions, her voice tries to remain calm, but a smile occasionally bursts through. She seems to finds this whole situation rather amusing now that the panic had dissipated.

“Christy showed me a photo, you were kissing this one older guy, wait-,“ I go to retrieve my backpack from where it was sitting by the door. Julius had protested when I had taken the manila envelope from him, but he hadn’t stopped me from putting it in my backpack, so I pulled it out and handed it to Velma. “See?”

She pulls out one of the photos and burst out laughing, “Daphne, you fell for this? I knew you weren’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, but this is bad.”

She glances at me to make sure she hadn’t gone too far before glancing back at the photo.

“What do you mean?”

I climb back into the bed next to her, leaning over her shoulder to see.

“Look, there’s a slight blur between me and this person, so if it wasn’t photoshop, it’s probably a mistimed photo of something else.” she hands the envelope back, “So no, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Well, then who’s this?” I say, gesturing with the photo.

“That’s Emily’s dad. It was probably taken on her first day working here.” she explains, “He dropped by after she left to thank me, and we hugged, so it’s probably from then. There aren’t a lot of jobs around here for young people, and very few would hire here because of the scandal surrounding their family. The whole “Emily being the only Asian in a family of white people” thing.”

“Oh.” I pause, “Sorry.”

“What do we do now?” she asks, “Are we dating? Are we not? What is this?”

“I don’t know.”

Neither of us looks at each other, scared to be the one to call it off or throw ours all into it. Eventually, though, the silence became unbearable and I took a deep breath.

“Should we-?”

“I don’t think this is a-,”

She glances at me, “You first.”

“Okay. The responsible decision would be not to, right?” I say, regret and logic battling internally, “You live here, I live in New York, it’s an eight-hour flight and long-distance almost never works out. A kiss doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Yeah…” Velma sighs, “I mean, you could move here?”

I chew on my lip, “We’ve already talked about this.”

Velma nods sadly, before adding, hopefully, “You said to Deacon that you work from home most days, though. Could you not just work from here?”

I think for a moment about how I would keep my answer vague enough, but ultimately decide to give in and tell the truth. I have a feeling that if I keep this lie going for any longer, it’s only going to get worse for me.

“I don’t work in private equity.” I confess, “I’m actually a journalist at The New York Daily News.”

Other than a small eyebrow twitch, Velma doesn’t react. “Why did you lie, then?”

“I didn’t lie to you, exactly. I just failed to mention that my parents have been telling everyone I work for a private equity firm based on the lie I told them a few years ago.” I explain, sheepishly, “I lied because my parents want me to be successful, and being a journalist isn’t exactly that.”

I explained how when I first started out in New York, my parents had insisted on paying for everything even though I was in my mid-twenties by that point and fully capable of doing so for myself. As my best friend, Makaela, worked in private equity, I let my parents believe that we worked together at Fortress Investment Group. We were living together at the time, so my parents bought it wholeheartedly, finally proud of their only child for getting a well-paying job.

“Oh, did Deacon recognise you from your connection to Makaela, then?” Velma asks, “He said you looked familiar.”

“No, Fortress Investment tried to get a leveraged buyout of the Daily when we were struggling last year, and Deacon was the one they sent in to lay off half of the editorial staff.” I expound sadly, “I lost a lot of my co-worker friends that day. They have kids they need to support, y’know?”

Velma nods but doesn’t say anything, leaving the space open for me to talk.

“Also, what’s your deal with Deacon?” I ask.

Velma visibly recoils, clambering off the bed a little too quickly to seem natural, “Why don’t we have some breakfast?”

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“Dr Blackwell?” Daphne asked, “Yeah, she’s my doctor, do you want me to make an appointment with her so we can snoop around her office?”

“Sure!”

Delighted that that conversation had gone so smoothly, I looped my arm through Daphne’s and we jokingly skipped along the corridor for a few paces before we dissolved into fits of laughter.

“Now we just need to find a way to get into Mr Hyde’s office, or at least talk to him.” I thought out loud.

With impeccable timing, Fred exits his English classroom, “You need to get into Mr Hyde’s office?”

“Yep.” I replied, for once actually cheerfully given who I was talking to, “Do you have a point of entry for us?”

“My dad makes all the council members individually have a meeting with him once a month, and Mr Hyde’s is today at four pm.” Fred explained as we walk to the cafeteria, “If I tell him that we’ve taken a sudden and not at all suspicious interest in local politics, he’ll let us sit in and observe.”

“That’s great!” I said as the three of us simultaneously flop down into our pre-determined seats on our table, “Glad to see we’re all on the same page.”

Daphne smiled at me as she got her lunch out from her bag. She started digging into her salad while I poured over the town records and Fred hurriedly copied my Maths homework.

Shaggy and Scooby glanced around, an empty grin adorning Shaggy’s face as he asked sanguinely, “Is there anything _we_ can do to help?”

“Nope.” The three of us replied without looking up from our various tasks.

Momentarily, I notice their faces fall, as though the full extent of their uselessness had finally come crashing down around them and they were left bewildered and alone in its wake. I watched as, in the space of a second, they flashback to the events to the past half-year. In the reflection of their eyes, I saw them, bumbling through every mystery, running away from even the tiniest sound, and blundering their way through the Jensen mansion’s flowerbeds.

Something urges me to lean forward and reassure them that they weren’t completely useless, but as Daphne and Fred weren’t doing anything, I didn’t either.

That afternoon, we paid a visit to Mr Hyde’s office. It was in one of two office buildings in Crystal Cove. It was the shiny new one on the outskirts of town. Originally, it was supposed to be part of a business park, but as Crystal Cove’s main income was tourism and fishing, there wasn’t much need for one and the plans were cancelled. The solitary office building was surrounded by trees, reflected in the wall of windows.

The secretary ushered us in without much complaint after Fred explained whose son he was, and we were handed the opportunity of snooping around the office.

Mr Hyde’s office was a de-saturated grey image of the perfectly neat office. There were almost no personal touches, and had it not been for the trees I could see outside, I would’ve believed that we had stepped into an alternative, colourless world. The desk had a blocky monitor displaying a mindless pixelated pattern, occasionally shifting from one shade of grade to another. The drawers all had neatly filed, alphabetically ordered paperwork, so neat that I was scared to pull even one of them out.

One drawer, however, was chocked full of historical documents. Some were photocopies, but others were the genuine original, and the thought of rifling through them excited me tremendously. It did worry me, though, that Mr Hyde was keeping them in his office. This office certainly didn’t meet the National Archive and Records Administration’s criteria for ideal conditions.

The room temperature alone is far from ideal, don’t even get me started on the fact that two of the four walls was entirely glass windows.

Daphne, who was helping me search Mr Hyde’s office, interrupted my thoughts by gesturing for me to come to her. She held something out for me to see, but before I could get a good look at it, Fred called out from the hallway, “Quick, they’re here!”.

Daphne hurriedly stuffed the piece of paper into her pocket, and the three of us tried our best to look natural on the armchairs in front of the desk.

Mr Hyde, a Ted Buckland-esque man, winced as Fred’s dad roughly out an arm around him. Mayor Jones seemed to be in a rather ebullient mood that day, but Mr Hyde was entirely down in the pits. He slouched so much he was almost half the height of Mayor Jones, even though Mr Hyde was a full inch taller.

Mr Hyde settled in his office chair as Mayor Jones made himself comfortable in his tiny armchair. He raised an eyebrow at Mr Hyde, who guiltily lowered his chair so that they were eye-level. A look of confusion crossed his face as he straightened the picture frame on his desk. Ultimately, he decides to leave the picture frame face down, giving the three of us a suspicious glance.

The meeting was dull as hell, and I’ve forgotten almost all of it. All I remember was Mr Hyde sweating so much his office started to feel like it was going to flood and his occasional worried glances over at me.

After the meeting, Fred had to stick around with his dad, but Daphne and I went to her fake appointment with Dr Blackwell. Unlike Mr Hyde, Dr Blackwell made us wait in the reception, so Daphne had to convince her to leave me alone in her office.

“Can I get an x-ray?” she asked bluntly.

“Why would you need an x-ray?” Dr Blackwell laughed, “Your insurance will only cover it if it’s necessary. Now, why did you come to visit me?”

“You know my dad pays for it all regardless, Dr Blackwell.” Daphne smiles sourly, “Also I think I might be pregnant; we need to do an ultrasound.”

I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but Dr Blackwell’s facial expression shifted suddenly, before returning to that buttery smile she had when she had shown us into her office.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that from the beginning?” Dr Blackwell took Daphne by the arm and lead her out the room, “Come on, I’ll take you upstairs. You’ll be alright here for a little bit, right?”

I waited a moment before I started rifling through her desk. In comparison to Mr Hyde’s desk, Dr Blackwell’s desk was the epitome of …, well, a landfill.

“Just so you know, Daphne, x-rays and pregnancies don’t mix, so an unnecessary x-ray could have harmed your baby.”

Dr Blackwell’s desk was littered with admissions forms, patient’s case histories, MRI scans, and lab results, all the usual doctor stuff. Her filing cabinets contained more of these, roughly ordered by the patient's name, but some drawers seemed to be just a dumping ground for miscellaneous information. The drawer jangled as I closed it, however, so I carefully rooted around the files to pull out a mini, portable fishing tackle box. Slightly perplexed, I shook off the thought and returned the box to its original position.

Underneath the mound of papers on her desk, I found a picture frame, identical to that sitting on Mr Hyde’s desk. It was a photo of a younger Mr Hyde and Dr Blackwell, arms around each other. Dr Blackwell is beaming, one hand on her stomach the other around Mr Hyde’s shoulders, and Mr Hyde was clutching a bottle of champagne spewing out its liquid contents in celebration.

I could hear Daphne talking a little too loudly, presumably for my benefit, so I returned everything to its original place the best I could. To be fair, I might’ve tidied things a bit in my snooping.

“Well, you’re not pregnant, Daphne, was there anything else you wanted to see me about?”

“Nope!” she replied with a cheery smile.

And with that, we left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if there are any glaring mistakes or inconsistencies with this chapter, I wrote most of it this morning with a grand total of three hours of sleep so I could get it out in time. 
> 
> I'm going to go take a nap before I pass out.
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	37. Chapter 37

_**Daphne, now:** _

Velma had already started working on breakfast when I entered the kitchen after her. She must’ve grabbed a cardigan on the way in as it flapped around her as she swirled around the kitchen in a frenzy. Velma holds a frying pan above her head as she whips the cardigan out of the way of a closing cabinet door. The cardigan is one of the longer ones, it almost reaches her knees, more of a knitted dressing gown than a cardigan. The sun shines in through the window, slightly cracked open to allow in a cool December breeze. Tree branches rap-tat-tat on the glass, fingers of fibrous wood knocking to be let in. Velma’s voice sounds panicked as she asks, “Eggs and beans on toast okay with you?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Thank you.” I answer as smoothly as I can, “Do you need a hand?”

We settle on having Velma toasting the bread and heating the beans while I do the eggs.

“I would have figured that you would be great at cooking, y’know with the whole bakery thing?” I say. Surprisingly, I’m better at cooking than Velma is!

“The thing is…-” Velma pauses as she checks on the beans,- “With baking, it’s not as stressful as cooking. Cooking requires strict timekeeping, which I’m not very good at. With baking though, for the most part, you can just mix the ingredients, slap it into the oven, wait a bit, and bish-bash-bosh, it’s done.”

“Mm.” I comment _very_ articulately, before adding, “The beans are burning.”

“Sh*t-.”

It doesn’t take very long to finish cooking the meal, and within ten minutes we’re on Velma’s balcony again, scarfing down our food. Neither of us speaks until we’re both finished and have wiped away the tomato juice from around our mouths.

“That takes me back.” she says, “That was probably the first meal my mum taught me how to cook.”

“Not very well,” I tease, flicking her a little with my napkin. Her smile is tight, and she seems reluctant to laugh, so I let it drop. “What are we going to do about Alexi’s birthday party?”

“I don’t know.” she replies, dragging her fork across her plate, “Do you still want to go?”

“Of course! Just because we aren’t-… I still want to go.” I again try to lighten the mood, “Fred and Shaggy are old now, that’s wild, and they’re _married_!”

“You called it, remember?”

“No?”

Velma reminds me of a conversation we’d had back in high school that I had completely forgotten about. It wasn’t that I had called their marriage exactly, but rather I had commented on how it would be nice if the four of us married each other and lived happily ever after. And how Fred had, naturally, been a creep about it (her words not mine).

“Still, after all these years, you still don’t like Fred?” I ask. “Velma, it’s been nearly three decades, I sure he’s grown up by now.”

“I bet you as soon as you walk into Alexi’s birthday party, Fred’s jaw will drop to the ground.” she says dryly, “He’ll be all over you.”

“Even though he’s married?” I ask, “And gay?”

“He’s bi.” she corrects, “And who wouldn’t, Daphne? Look at yourself, other than the lying about your job and Deacon and your whole life in New York, you’re an amazing person. I’ve been using you as my slave these past couple of days, and you haven’t complained once. I kissed you without your consent, and yet we’re sitting across from each other amicably as though it never happened.”

A blush creeps up my neck and cheeks.

“The thing is, Velma, I don’t -.” I pause for a second, trying my best to swallow back words before they spill out, “We can talk about this later, we should get ready for the birthday party.”

“Fine.” Velma’s voice is icy cold, devoid of all emotion, “The party starts at 12, so we need to get going by eleven o’clock. If you want, we can take my car as you returned your rental, right?”

“Yep. Before we go, is it alright if I drop by home first?” I ask, “I want to take a shower and get dressed before we head out, and probably let my parents know about where I’m going before they call the police. Oh, and pick up Alexi’s birthday present from my desk.”

Velma agrees, and we head out after clearing away our plates. She takes me around the back of the bakery, where there is the smallest car park I have ever seen lies. It would barely fit more than two cars. The ancient Mk3 Cortina that Velma’s Mum had driven back in the nineties takes up most of that space as it is. It was old and broken even then, now it seemed seconds away from falling apart.

I remember one morning when Fred was ill, Mrs Dinkley had driven us to school in this car. It had been like sitting in a rattling box as it bumbled along the road.

Upon closer inspection, however, the car revealed itself to be in fairly good repair. The paint was peeling away from the car, but that seems to be the only part majorly in disrepair.

“Does your Mum still drive this thing?”

“No, she stopped a couple of years back.”

Velma roots around her pockets for the car keys but comes up with nothing. Cursing, she leaves me to pull the branches and leaves from the car’s roof while she gets the keys and all of the other things we would need.

As I brush away the leaves, a small bird flits above my head. Glancing up, I could’ve sworn I saw a face between the trees, treading softly away from me. Oddly, I wasn’t freaked out about the notion. Something comforted me in the fact that the face was not there to hurt me. Or for me at all.

I put my hands in my pocket in a futile attempt to keep them warm, only for them to brush against something in my pocket. I pull it out to reveal the small stone from the meadow, the one I thought had been a brief hallucination.

I stuff the rock back into my pocket as Velma reappears, having locked all the doors, laden with backpacks and gift bags and cakeboxes.

“I couldn’t find the keys, so I must’ve dropped them around here, could you help me look for them?”

It takes a couple of minutes, but when I sweep the last of the leaves on the car’s roof to the ground, I hear a clink as something hits the ground. Rooting through the pile, I unearth a set of car keys tied together with a red ribbon.

I hand them to Velma, who seems more confused than before. “They were on the roof.”

“Thanks…”

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“-and so, there was this beautiful clearing in the middle of nowhere.” Shaggy explained, emoting wildly as does so, “We have to have a picnic there.”

“Today?” Daphne asked, “But it’s barely January. And it’s freezing!”

“I’m sure we’re all sick of researching in the library all day, we all need a break.” Shaggy argued, “Right?”

“ _You_ want a break,” I said pointedly, “Are you really roping us into it just so you won’t feel lonely and miserable when you do have the picnic?”

“Maybe?”

Despite our protests, Shaggy and Scooby had managed to coerce us into the picnic, even going so far as to assign roles. Fred was put in charge of catering (although Shaggy and Scooby were better at begging for food from the school caterers, they would just eat everything before it made its way to the rest of us), Daphne was in charge of gathering supplies for the picnic, Shaggy and Scooby were naturally in charge of finding the aforementioned clearing, and I was in charge of somehow communicating what we were doing to our parents.

I remember that morning passing at ludicrous speed. Four lessons blurred into one as I frantically noted down class notes along with the crew’s respective home numbers. During break, I snuck into the office, ducked under the table with the phone and dialled each of the numbers. I didn’t bother calling my own home as I knew that Mum doesn’t get home until after dark anyway, which we had all agreed to be home by.

After lunch, Fred emerged from the kitchen victorious, holding aloft a handful of cutlers and a basket laden with food. Daphne had whipped up a picnic blanket during her Design class and somehow managed to borrow a picnic basket, which Fred was now holding, from the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. She’d also managed to find a couple of extra blankets to keep us warm while we were out there. I don’t know what we would do without her.

Peeking inside the basket, I see six canisters of what I presume is soup, a thermos flask, and an array of various snacks for us to feast ourselves upon.

“The caterers threw in some hot chocolate too.” Fred added, “The good stuff, not the watered-down stuff they usually give us.”

“Yeah, the usual stuff is gross.” Daphne said, disgust visible on her face, “It’s like someone got toilet water, added brown food colouring and some sugar, and called it a day.”

“It’s not that bad.” Scooby called out from under the table, “Ruh oh…”

Scooby slinked back under the table as Fred glared at him. Something was going on between Fred and Shaggy, and Scooby seemed to have stumbled into the crosshairs.

I don’t think I paid much attention to those final two lessons. My mind had wandered to dreams of a fantasy clearing that I wasn’t entirely sure was real yet. In my imagination, it was summer, a blazing sun illuminating the scene, filling it with warmth. Mattress-like green grass bounces as I wade through the foliage. A circle of trees protect us from imminent threats, allowing us to play in peace. The sky was filled with wisps of clouds swirling about in crisp definition.

My daydream of the clearing continues as we carried out our mission: we met up promptly after the bell rang by Fred’s van, picked up Maddy, explained what was happening to her, they coasting slightly above the speed limit to make it to the clearing in the shortest possible time.

The clearing itself was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to that daydream. As expected, it was all under an inch or two of snow as it was still winter in the real world. It’s a bit like an island in a sea of trees, there’s a winding river flowing through the middle, dividing it into two parts. In the centre, there was a huge oak tree. Even if all six of us linked hands and pressed our cheeks into the tree trunk to make our arms stretch the farthest they possible could, we would not be able to encircle the tree trunk. The boughs looked like titan's arms, ready to smack any of us at any moment, but as we stood under the tree’s barren canopy, we felt protected by an unseen force. I imagine, in the summer, when the leaves blossom one more, standing under this tree would feel like standing in a dome made entirely of nature.

Maddy set about collecting stones almost immediately. She selected only those smoothed by the power of the current, all dull rounded grey stones, and placed them in a circle at the base of the tree. She started clambering up, ignoring my calls for her to be careful as she ascended to higher and higher heights until I couldn’t see her at all. Fred and Shaggy were playing truth or dare, but this devolved into an argument quickly after, while Scooby watched the freezing water flow through the river. Occasionally, he would drop a stick into the stream, following it as it drifted in the current. Daphne and I set up the picnic around Fred and Shaggy, who were too busy arguing to help. They had been arguing in quiet hisses first, but the volume had increased to the point where it was difficult to ignore.

“What’s up with them?” I asked, “They’ve been arguing all week.”

“I don’t know.” Daphne shrugged, “Whenever I ask Fred, he just blows me off, saying I wouldn’t understand.”

Once we’d smoothed down the picnic blanket and pinned it down with our backpacks, I called out to the others that it was time to eat. Fred and Shaggy simply turned around, both somewhat sulky and refusing to speak to the other. Shaggy bounded over, already licking his lips at the prospect of food. Maddy, who I was expecting to cautiously climb down from the tree, hurled herself off of one of the branches. My heart lurched at that moment, sure that she was going to fall to her death. Instead, she seemed to gently drift down, like a leaf caught in the wind, idly taking her time to fall to the ground. Her feet land neatly in the centre of her rock circle, and she ran over to us as though nothing happened.

Glancing around at the others, I realised that I was the one who had seen any of that happen. Fred and Shaggy were too busy ignoring each other and Daphne was barely managing to stave Scooby off of her soup to notice. Maddy smiled at me, slightly confused, “Anything wrong, Velma?”

Picking my jaw off of my chest, I managed to stammer out a scarcely coherent reply.

Most of my memories of that day after that come from Daphne's photos. Fred and Shaggy arguing as Scooby chased Maddy around them in circles. Maddy and Scooby throwing a snowball in their faces. Fred and Shaggy looking stunned as Maddy and Scooby howling on the ground with laughter. Fred forming his snowball and throwing it at Maddy. A blurry photo of Maddy and Scooby as they shake the snow out of their hair and fur. A full-blown snowball fight. Me falling back into the snow. All but Daphne making snow angels in the snow. Laughing as Maddy fills my hood with snow, pulling it over my head. All of us standing next to a row of snow people that we had made. Scooby’s was a “muscle-dog”, and he was flexing next to it in a similar position, while Maddy’s was a sunshine child, somehow wearing a flower crown of pink camellias even though most had stopped blooming a month ago. Both mine and Daphne’s were classic snow people: three large snowballs stacked on top of each other and decorated with random items. Daphne’s was wearing her scarf and one of the blankets as a dress, whereas mine wore my hat and my backpack. Shaggy had made a jokey one: using sticks he had made it look like his snow person was peeing on the oak tree. Fred had made his to be a king, sitting on a thrown of snow, as well as an additional throne for him to sit on. The photos after that was, naturally, Shaggy, Scooby, and Maddy collaborating to push Fred from the throne and steal it for themselves.

I remember, years later, Daphne had sent me the photos from that day when she moved out of her parent’s place. There had been one extra photo in there, one that I had no memory of being taken: me, sitting on the picnic blanket, laughing at something just out of the frame. Maddy is leaning on my shoulder, sipping at the hot chocolate, her blanket starting to slip from her shoulders. Daphne had written on the back with her beautiful cursive handwriting: “My favourite memory <3\. If only you could bottle up memories and carry them with you always.” 

I remember bawling my eyes out as I read that on the stairs, the cold, empty and unempathetic house entirely silent except for my sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else watch Unus Annus before it ended?  
> It still doesn't feel real that it's gone. I still expect my phone to give me a youtube notification saying that there's a new video, but it never comes. I guess that all there is left to say is: "Thank you for the memories."
> 
> On a less morbid thought, there's a new chapter! :)  
> This is probably the first chapter in which you really meet Maddy, I think? The previous chapters have mentioned her, but this is the first time you guys get to see what she's like. Also, I only realised this about a week ago, but Velma actually does have a little sister in the TV show, and by coincidence, she's actually called Madelyn! 
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	38. Chapter 38

_**Daphne, now:** _

As Lyle had gone home for the holidays, I had to get out of the car and open the gate. Velma eased the car through my parent’s driveway, I jog a little to catch up to her. She’s already waiting by the door when I approach her. Rooting through the soil-filled flowerpot, I pull out the emergency house key. Oddly, no-one has realised it's hidden there; that flowerpot has never had anything grow in there in the three decades since my parents put it out here. Using the key, I let the two of us in.

Mum was napping lightly on the sofa, and bolts upright when she hears the door open. She rushes over and starts fussing over me, clucking like a mother hen at the slightest thing. Mum brushes the soil off of my fingers, picks at the lint on my clothes, and checks my limbs for injuries. Velma tries her best to hide her smile behind a hand.

“Mum, I’m fine!” I try to reassure her, “Why are you-?”

“Barty, she’s home!” she calls up the stairs, “Come downstairs, she’s okay!”

Dad appears at those words, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, widening his arms for a hug, “Darling!”

The two of them shuffle around me, commenting about this bruise and that papercut, a hubbub of noise and parental worry.

“Guys, calm down, I’m fine. I’m an adult, remember? I can take care of myself.” I say above the fray, “Mum, Dad, this is Velma, you should remember her from high school. Make sure she’s comfortable while I go take a shower.”

While no-ones looking, I cross my finger and pray that my parents don’t skin her alive tripping over themselves to be polite.

It’s nice to be alone for the first time in twenty-four hours. Not that hanging around Velma isn’t lovely, it’s just that sometimes I feel like we’re both two seconds from calling this whole thing off and going back to not talking to each other again. Thinking about it now, I realise how much I _don’t_ want that to be the case. Sure, it’s nice to be alone, I think to myself as I grab a towel, but only because I know Velma is waiting for me downstairs. 

What am I going to do about the whole covering for Brenda thing? I know logistically, it would be a nightmare to work from here: the internet is sh*tty and slow, there’s a huge time difference, and I don’t have access to any of the usual resources that I have at the office.

But. The thought of returning to that office, especially when it's cold and empty as everyone has gone home for the holidays, makes me want to pull my heart out of my chest if that’s what it took to avoid that.

Maybe I could get Mitch from IT to hook me up with some tech to help me out? He owes me a favour after all, and he’s at the very least still in New York since his family are staying home for the holidays. He could maybe even clock me in and out if need be.

As long as Mathew doesn’t find out…

I shiver, recoiling at the thought of his name. I turn the water up, trying to wash away the fear, the disgust, banish the thought from my mind.

Surprisingly, when I return twenty-five minutes later with freshly washed hair and a new outfit, Velma is perfectly safe. She’s sitting in the living room with my parents having a rather concord conversation, sipping at a cup of tea.

“Oh, Daphne, you’re back,” Mum says, stating the obvious, “We were just talking about how we should all enjoy a meal together while you’re still in town.”

“Sounds fun.” I settle into the sofa next to Velma, opposite my parents, “When, exactly?”

“Next Sunday? We could do a nice Sunday roast dinner as the brits do.” Dad suggests, already licking his lips at the idea, “I read about it on the internets.”

Holding back a cringe at the use of the phrase “the internets”, I look at Velma to gauge her reaction. She seems conflicted, staring down into her cup as though it would hold the answers she seeks.

“But that would send your cholesterol through the roof, Barty.” Mum reminds him, stroking his left leg to soothe him, “Be reasonable, dear.”

“No, actually that sounds fun, Mum.” I continue to watch Velma out of the corner of my eye as I talk, “Just give Dad some healthier stuff. And Velma, you could join us, we could celebrate your victory in that Bake Off.”

“I-I really couldn’t- I’d be imposing, and-,” I can’t read Velma’s face at all at this moment. It’s anxiety, mixed with sadness, maybe, and something else I couldn’t quite place. Her expression reminds me of dream jars in The BFG: colourful swirls of _something_ just out of my grasp, “I have to go see my mother. It’s something I have to do every Sunday afternoon after I shut shop.”

Mum and Dad share a Look. They know something I don’t.

“Well, we could go see her together, if you like?” I suggest, “I haven’t seen her in a while – since high school, probably.”

“You would do that?” she asks, “For me?”

I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s probably something like Velma’s mum being in a care home, so I push the matter out of my mind. “Well, that’s sorted then. Should we get going?”

Velma nods, so I grab my backpack, which I had packed with my laptop, a charger, and Alexi’s birthday present as I had gotten dressed. I wave goodbye to my parents and head out.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

Finally, we’d worked up the courage to enter the house on Claremont Road. We stood before it, armed with our weapons of deduction. Daphne had her camera, Fred had that stupid ascot, Shaggy had a magnifying glass, Scooby had stolen a box of Scooby Snacks from my bag, and I had my notebook as usual. For her safety, I had forbidden Maddy from coming along to this particular mystery but reassured her that she could come along next time. I wasn’t going to have a repeat of the situation with Melissa.

Daphne had somehow managed to find the key for the house while we were searching Mr Hyde’s office, it was what she had been gesturing for me to have a look at. Fred, however, was the one who actually stole the key from the office. And he _would not_ shut up about it.

“I got the key, you know that?” he bragged to Shaggy, “I’m basically a core member of the group now.”

Shaggy rolled his eyes, snatching a Scooby Snack from the box as he does so.

“Hm, no.” I said curtly, praying under my breath that the key would, in fact, work, “Your application is still pending.”

“But there’s only three of you, what is there to argue about-?”

“Exactly, we have limited capacity. We’re an extremely popular club to apply for.” I told him, adding as condescendingly as possible, “Thank you for understanding.”

Thankfully, with perfect timing, the door swings open as I said those words.

As all of the downstairs windows had been boarded up, it took our eyes a while to adjust to the semi-darkness inside. As the darkness peeled away, we saw that we were in a rather large foyer. A chandelier, its shine dimmed by years’ worth of dust and cobwebs, dangled down like an ornate necklace in a corpse’s neck. The ceiling was painted with intricate patterns but was intermittently interrupted by long, straight lines. It was hard to tell what they were from this distance (the foyer housed the staircase to the second storey, and thus the ceiling must have been at least three, if not four or five, meters above our heads) but they reminded me a little of the school’s stage’s ceiling, for some reason. The staircase, a glorious wooden monstrosity of middle-classness, winded up to the landing, which was shrouded in shadows still.

“We should split up,” Fred suggested, like an idiot. I told him as much, too.

“That’s a stupid idea.” I argued, “There’s safety in numbers, and there’s not enough of us to justify splitting up. Ideally, we would be in groups of three, so if someone gets hurt, one person can stay with them while the other gets help. If we split into two groups of two -sorry Scooby- we’ve basically slapped a sign on our foreheads saying, “I’m dumb, come eat me!”.”

Fred looked like he was about to argue back, but upon seeing Shaggy and Daphne nod along in agreement, he backed down, tail between his legs. Scooby even tried to give him a gentle and reassuring pat on the shoulder, but Fred roughly jostled Scooby’s paw off of his shoulder.

Eventually, though, Fred stood up and started looking around the house. Even he couldn’t resist the call of the mystery of this house.

Something about this house felt … off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but the house didn’t feel real. It was expected for a house like this to be in a certain state of disrepair, but certainly not to this dilapidated extent. The cobwebs looked a little _too_ perfect: there were none of the kinks and broken parts that naturally occur in real life. The chandelier was broken, but not in the manner one would expect. A few of the dangling pieces had “fallen off” but they weren’t on the floor beneath the chandelier. And sure, the thick layer of dust would be expected for a house that had been left empty like this, but _this_ thick?

Fred whistled, impressed by the sheer volume of dust, as he ascended those aforementioned stairs. His brow furrowed as he seemed to notice something on the ground next to him.

Daphne snapped some preliminary photos of the foyer, temporarily filling the foyer with blinding light as she does so.

A loud snap reverberated throughout the foyer and a large figure appeared on the chandelier. It was shrouded in a dark cloth, shredded at the hem, and was at least a full head taller than Fred. A large booming sound made our ears ring, making it impossible to hear to one another, even if we shouted. Under all that noise, however, I heard a hushed whirr of what may have just been a car outside, backing into the road. The figure elevated itself off of the ground and started to swirl around the foyer, slowly descending upon our heads. Its stiff, rigid limbs reaching out in a grabbing motion.

Fred grabbed the bannister to keep from falling down the stairs in shock, while Daphne plummeted towards the ground, unconsciously snapping a few more photos as she fell back. Scooby barked wildly, temporarily losing his voice, and Shaggy had to hold him back from leaping about, snapping at the ankles of the figure. I rushed to help Daphne to her feet and gestured for Shaggy to get Fred, who was still cowering behind the bannister.

We book it towards the doors, not daring to look back to see if the figure was following us. If there was a record for exiting a home and driving off in a van, we broke it. We’d barely clicked in our seatbelts by the time Fred had started the engine and rounded the corner, panting out panicky breaths.

Shaggy was the first one to start laughing, I’m still not entirely sure why, but within moments, we’re all laughing, tearing up our sides as we do so. I was laughing so hard it hurt to take in the gulps of air in between the bellows, and Daphne was wiping away tears.

“Well, that was fun!”

It really wasn’t, but without my friends by my side, I don’t think I would’ve made it out at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up: there might not be a chapter next week. (I have end-of-term exams coming up, and apparently, I need to study for those...)   
> I'll try my best, but there are no guarantees.  
> Sorry in advance if there isn't a new chapter!
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	39. Chapter 39

_**Daphne, now:** _

The car rattled its way down the road, I wouldn’t have been surprised to blink and find myself in a horse-drawn carriage thanks to the gentle rocking and the speed we were going. The radio was blasting The Proclaimers’ “I’m gonna be (500 miles)” at full volume on repeat. The CD player is broken, Velma told me, and the CD had gotten stuck inside. I couldn’t help but hum along a little as Velma drove us to Alexi’s birthday party.

Velma seems like she wants to say something, so I throw her a bone, “What’s Alexi like?”

“She’s adorable.” Velma says, glancing between me and the road, “She gets kind of nervous sometimes, though, so try not to startle her too much.”

“Like a rabbit?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Velma laughs, “Do you remember the petting zoo the Student Council tried to start? It was in our junior year, I think?”

“Oh!” Memories once again start to flood back, as they tend to do whenever Velma and I talk. They’re bright, colourful flashbacks, montages of actions, and laughter, and smiles all around. Velma was still in my life at that time, but even then she was starting to drift into the background a little bit. “Yeah, I remember the chickens escaped out of their coop and caused havoc for the rest of the day.”

“The Student Council forgot that chickens could jump, or I guess hop, over the fence quite easily.” Velma replies, eyes filled with joy at the memory, “Spring had melted all of the snow overnight, so the field was a mud plain, basically. We trekked in so much mud that day…”

“Yeah, the head wasn’t very pleased, was she?” I remark, “All Student Council events had to be supervised after that if memory serves correctly.”

We let the amusing memory sit in the car, like the lingering smell of a scented candle. Neither disrupted it and instead simply basked in the nostalgia.

In my memory, I can see Bobby Reeves, her expensive jeans covered to the knee with splattered mud, clutching a wriggling chicken with a delighted smile on her face. Fred rubbing mud in Shaggy’s face, chin thrown back in raucous laughter. It must have been during one of their more amicable spells. Shaggy shaking the mud out of his fur coat, and onto everyone else. Velma, in her sensible wellies, ducking to avoid a handful of mud being thrown at her.

We drive in comfortable silence for the next few miles before Velma spots a sign. It’s a vintage-looking wooden sign painted white. Written on it in barely legible cursive are the words: “Strawberry Fields Farmshop” above an illustration of two strawberries.

“We should stop here!” she says excitedly, pointing at the sign, “It’s this lovely farm shop run by this delightful old couple. They won’t have much fresh produce this time of yeah, but they make some great jam and cheese.”

“Do we have time?”

“Of course, we do!” Velma replies cheerfully, already turning at the junction, “I always add a little bit of time in the schedule for delays like this.”

Even in high school, Velma was like this. For the ten-minute drive to school, she insisted on us leaving ten minutes early, “just in case there is traffic”. There never was, and we always arrive early, but still, she insisted. Fred and I used to joke that her motto should be “better four hours too early than a minute too late.”.

She was right about the farm shop, though. It was this tiny, refurbished cottage that was half tearoom, half farm shop and garden centre. We didn’t take a stroll through the greenhouse and the wonders I imagine it contained, but we did stop by the tearoom before popping into the farm shop. The tearoom, unsurprising given the time of year, was fairly empty. The kids weren’t yet off from school, and it was still rather early in the morning for day-trippers.

We each get a cup of an English breakfast tea (Velma insisted) and sit at one of the tables outside, letting the breeze cool our drinks to a tolerable temperature.

Velma tells me about how, in the summer, they open up the fields for families to come to pick strawberries. They only paid for what they had in their buckets, so many would eat as they picked. She talks about how she had brought Emily along last year, and how she had to teach her how to pick strawberries because Emily had no idea how to.

“Kids nowadays, huh?” she says, sipping her tea, “Can’t do a darn thing sometimes.”

“ _You_ didn’t know how to pick blackberries before I taught you how.” I point out, teasing.

“That doesn’t count.” she protests jokingly, “I was trying to get you to hold my hand.”

“Really?”

A part of me wants to believe her. Summer days from that first year all kind of melted together, but I do remember some little moments. Chasing after a rogue hat, technically trespassing and wearing the scars of barbed wire as a badge of honour, foraging in the woods when we didn’t bring enough picnic food. That little detail would fit so well with my narrative, but she could just be teasing again.

She only winked at me, blushing immediately and apologising.

I let it go and we head inside to farm shop without talking. It’s this one fairly large room covered with shelves upon shelves of organic, local, and fresh produce. There’s a huge display with many kinds of cheese that filled the room with the slightly funky smell of fresh cheese. In a corner, there is a floor-to-ceiling shelving system, jars upon jars of jam spilling out of the shelving system. Behind the cheese counter, a small elderly woman appears, cheerfully greeting us as we entered.

“What’s would you recommend, Tammy?” Velma replies chirpily, approaching the counter, “That brie last time was really good.”

Tammy lets us try a little bit of her cheese display, and even some of the jams, and we pick out a couple of items to take home with us.

Each, I mean. We don’t live together, even though I’ve slept over at Velma’s more than at my parents’. It feels weird to think that. A little part of my brain really wanted us to be more than what we are now.

Well, maybe more than a little.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“Right, let’s take a look,” Daphne said, letting the prints spill out from the envelope onto the dining room table. A couple of photos fell from the table, so I bend down to scoop them back up.

Shaggy and Fred helped her root through the photos while murmuring between themselves.

“That place was _so_ haunted.” Shaggy said, “It gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Aw,” Fred replied mockingly, “Do you want me to hold your widdle hand?”

Shaggy simply scowled at him.

The photos were all of the photos Daphne had taken since Christmas, all two hundred or so of them. Some are fairly generic festive ones: the Christmas tree, her parents with Santa hats and a flute of champagne each, an artistic shot of a bauble reflecting the string of lights. Others are candid shots of the rest of the crew: Fred watching Shaggy out of the corner of his eye, Shaggy eating his third sandwich by the looks of the plates in front of him, Scooby fast asleep on the van. And me. It’s from that day with the note, I was sitting with my chin in my hand, gazing out of the window with a faraway look. My class notes were spread about me across the table, and I could see a corner of Daphne’s note peeking out above them.

Daphne saw me reading the note.

The panic starts to spiral, and I felt myself start to drift as thunder filled my ears. The voices fade away and I stopped straining my ears to hear them, instead letting my mind replace them with scathing threats.

I felt someone place their hand on my arm reassuringly. A small “I’m here if you need me” kind of touch. It’s not much, but it’s plenty to break me out of the spiral from taking me further.

“Thanks,” I tell Daphne. I don’t know if she fully realised what she just did, but she smiled, and my anxiety cowered away.

That’s something even the councillor had struggled to do. What gave Daphne the power…?

Daphne broke away and picked up a couple of the photos, pushing the rest aside to create blank space on the table and arranging the ones she held into a line.

They were the photos from the day we went to the house at the corner of Claremont Road. There was a couple of exterior shots of the house, showing its current dilapidated state, as well as those from the library from when it was first built. As Daphne hadn’t been there when I found the photo of Mr Hyde and Dr Blackwell, there wasn’t a photo of it, and I had to rely on my memory. Other photos included Fred on the stairs, Shaggy and Scooby watching a spider with a magnifying glass, and me looking up at the chandelier. The last photo in the line was that of the dark figure, surprisingly within focus.

The figure in the photo is wearing one of those cheap latex Halloween masks, you could see the edge of it hanging over their robes. The black, shredded fabric of the robes looked a little too clean, and the “shredding” had no fraying on the edges as though they were not torn but rather cut roughly. Behind the figure, I could see the light of the camera’s flash reflected in the fairly thin wire or cord that I assume was enabling the “ghost” to fly. This, clearly, was not a real ghost.

“Also, I saw footprints on the stairs,” Fred told us, “They only went up, though, so whoever went up hadn’t come back down yet at that point.”

“I don’t think this is a person,” Daphne said.

The rest of turned to her, puzzled. Shaggy was the first to speak, “What do you mean?”

“I know a mannequin when I see one,” she pointed at the picture, “Remember how the arms were always held out before them? They were really rigid, and no human can do that. Try it, I bet you’ll shake at least a little bit.”

We did so and found out that, yes, we did all wobble.

“So, it wasn’t actually haunted?” Shaggy asked.

“No.”

“Well, then what’s going on?” Fred counters.

That question repeated itself over and over in my head for the next few weeks. I was spending most afternoons in the library researching, to the point where my teachers were becoming concerned as I had started missing assignment deadlines.

It was nearly eight in the evening and I’d hit another wall. The library was almost empty, except for the knitting club who inexplicably has its meetings late into the night. There was a new member of the group, so they were all catching her up on the new gossip.

I let their voices pass over my head as I stared at the photo of the exterior of the photo of the house.

“You know Cathy is having an affair… with her own husband?” one of them said in a dramatic whisper, “They’re _role-playing_.”

“Are you going to the Council meeting tomorrow, Gladys?” another asked, “Mr Hyde might finally get that house he’s after.”

“Oh! Did you hear about Dr Blackwell?”

My ears pricked up. A clue?

“No, I haven’t. How is she, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“A little birdie told me she might be having another baby.” the original one whispers to the others.

“But after what happened last time…”

“What happened last time?” the newest member asked. She’s the youngest of the group, maybe a daughter of one of them, and her eyes dart about with curiosity, soaking up as much information as possible.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t you know?” another said, “She had a miscarriage. It broke her heart, bless her.”

At this point, I hear the library doors open and running footsteps approaching. I glanced up to see Maddy sprinting towards me.

“Velma!” she managed between gasps for air, “Your Mum said to come home before your dinner gets cold.”

“Did you… did you run all the way here? But Maddy, that’s like four miles how did you- you could’ve just taken the bus-,”

“Oh!” Maddy, not listening to me, picked up the photo I was staring at, “I know this house. Daniel likes to bury his toys there.”

Perfect. I’m getting all of the clues today. Daniel is one of the first real friends Maddy’s made while she had been living with us, so I already know way too much about him, but if it helps me solve the mystery, I’ll take it.

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever he breaks one of his toys, his parents yell at him, so he just pops next door and buries them there.” Maddy said nonchalantly as though this is the most normal thing in the world, “He says a lady pays him a penny every time he does it.”

Which is when everything finally clicked in place, and I could officially call this mystery solved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy St Nicholas Day!  
> If anyone's curious, I got a pack of (vegetarian) Haribos which I'm making my way through as I type this. 
> 
> Any guesses on what the solution to the mystery is? (I'm trying to gauge if I've left enough clues sprinkled about...)  
> Thank you for reading! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	40. Chapter 40

_**Daphne, now:** _

After we left the farm shop with our various goods, we made quick work of the remaining half an hour or so of the journey. We sang along to The Proclaimers for the five hundredth time, so we didn’t lose our minds listening to it. We laughed at the corny jokes the radio presenters uttered after we had turned to the radio for solace after the millionth reiteration of The Song. We wound the windows down and let the wind bluster through our hair, whipping it around us. It was a picture-perfect montage of a road trip.

Velma gently eases the beat-up car into a road lined with identical suburban homes. They’ve all got winding paths up to a small porch, upon which is some form of furniture, be it a rocking chair, a swing seat, or a bench. They’ve all got two storeys, presumably with a loft extension given the fact that most have two dormers on their roofs, and the walls are clad with a variety of shades of blue sliding. Each lot is neatly defined by the white picket fence that signifies their boundaries. Neat, trimmed bushes and trees line that garden a little too perfectly, possibly the result of some rule defined in the Homeowner’s Association.

Number 43 is the one Velma parks in front of, unclipping her seatbelt and making sure her minimal make-up was still passable (it was). She reached into the backseat and pulled out our things, handing mine to me, “Ready?”

“Yep.”

Balloons hang on the windows and a “Happy Birthday!” banner, decorated with a rainbow of streamers, hangs over the front door. Something inside instinctively knows that Shaggy is responsible for these decorations.

We can already hear music playing from outside, and I see a few curtains twitching in the other homes in response. The music only gets louder when a man, head turned to shout something back into the house, opens the door.

I didn’t recognise him until he turned to face us, which revealed his iconic blond hair, now slightly darker and speckled with grey, and cravat. F*cking Fred, of course, he never lost the cravat. In response to his shout, a small child bounds towards us, leaping towards Velma.

The small child’s pigtails flutter behind her as her yellow dress flickers like a flame. Velma drops everything she was carrying, and I have to scramble about catching them all before they break, while Velma whirls, I presume, Alexi around in the air before pulling her into a hug.

“Aunty Velma!” Alexi joyously cries, “You came!”

“How could I miss your seventh birthday, poppet?”

While they’re having their mini-reunion, I manage to wave at Fred, who doesn’t seem to recognise me at all.

“Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Fred, Alexi’s father,” he says in his polite voice (the one that’s a lot posher than his actual voice), “Are you and Velma…?”

“Fred, what the he-?”

Thankfully, Shaggy, who comes up behind him and wraps an arm around Fred’s waist, recognises me and stops me from cursing in front of their (nearly) seven-year-old daughter, “Hi, Daphne, do you want to come in? Let me help you with those bags.”

I brush past Fred, who like Velma predicted, was too busy picking up his jaw from the floor to help. To add fuel to the fire, I can’t help but pat his shoulder, “Nice to see you haven’t changed.”

To be fair to him I don’t think that was lust or even an old crush, he does seem wholly devoted to his marriage by the looks of things, it’s probably just the shock of seeing someone after so many years.

“Are they…?” I hear him whisper to Shaggy, “You didn’t tell me _who_ Velma was bringing!”

“Not officially. And I did, you just weren’t listening!” Shaggy hisses back, jokingly pushing shoving away.

They weren’t exactly arguing, which they used to do _all_ the time, but they did remind me immensely of their younger selves, just in slightly larger bodies.

I don’t recognise anyone else at this party. There are occasionally one or two people, but only people I knew in passing, never anyone I was friends with. Alexi seems to be in the same boat as me, or she had been instructed to befriend me, I don’t know, and she took me by the hand to “show me something”. Shaggy also handed me an armful of presents to take up to Alexi’s room, saying that he’ll get me something to drink.

She leads me through the living room, where a gaggle of people stood around drinking wine and talking, the dining room, in which a table was piled high with food, the kitchen, where a couple embarrassedly broke apart from a make-out session although they started up again before we even left the room, upstairs to a brightly lit bedroom. It’s clearly Alexi’s room, given the toys and the child’s bed, and I have to stoop a little to not bang my head against the roof (it’s a loft room).

After I arrange the presents in a corner of the room, Alexi leads me to the small children’s sofa by one of the windows, instructing me to sit down on it. I do so, my knees uncomfortably high given the fact that this sofa is not built for someone adult-sized like me.

I glance out the window and marvel at the view of the sea. As I rest my chin in my hand, I feel my elbow know something over. Looking down, I see a row of smooth grey rocks, arranged from biggest to smallest left to right. Next to the smallest stone is the blue rabbit. It’s faded since the last time I saw it in person, worn with years’ worth of love and adoration. I thought I’d be more hurt to see it here, but something about the embroidered smile told me that it was happier here anyway.

It’s not like Maddy could play with it anymore, anyway.

The sight of the rocks, however, did remind me of the rock I’d put into my pocket last night. I don’t know why, but I had brought it here. I pull it out of my pocket and place it on the windowsill next to the other rocks. Size-wise, it slots straight into the middle of the line of rocks, with stones three either side of it.

Alexi returns from her rummage around her chest of costumes by her bed holding a felt roast turkey hat and a Santa hat. Laughing, I put on the turkey hat, noting aloud that it takes my outfit to the next level, and head back downstairs with her.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

Of course, after the staying-late-in-the-library incident, Mum grounded me for two weeks, which included using the landline to tell my friends about what I knew. Why is it always during the most important moments Mum steps in and stops me? Thankfully, it wasn’t on a Friday but rather a Thursday, so I still had time to tell the gang about what was happening before it was too late.

That night, I formulated a plan for the next day, hoping and praying that the guys will just go along with it, else it won’t work.

First thing that Friday morning, I bolted out of bed, slung clothes on my back, shovelled breakfast into my mouth, and waited anxiously by the door.

Maddy trailed downstairs after me, rubbing her eyes. Her worn and loose pyjamas, my old ones that Mum had given her along with a few other items after finding out that Maddy didn’t have much for a wardrobe, hung limply around her frame.

“Morning,” she mumbled sleepily, pouring herself some cereal, “Why are we awake at five a.m., Velma?”

“We need to get ready for school as soon as possible.” I told her, trying my best to hide my anxious urgency, “I really need to talk to the guys about something.”

“Mm.”

Maddy went about her morning as usual, not at all bothered by my erratic behaviour, as though she had seen this all before, even though she’s only lived here for a little over a month. She had changed quite a bit since we first met.

Maddy was no longer like glass at that point, and even though it was still difficult to determine her expression most days, it no longer felt like she was trying to hide everything from me. She stopped eating her meals in her room and had started joining us for “family” meals, she had opened up more about school life, and she’d even managed to hold a conversation with her social worker, Bobby.

According to Bobby, Maddy had only ever given minimal responses to his questions in the past and had been fairly uncooperative despite his numerous attempts to befriend her. She hadn’t however, stopped talking about her dad.

“He’s really strong, you know?” she said that morning, “When he’s in a good mood, he likes to throw me about in the air. I bet he could lift you too, Velma!”

I wasn’t exactly listening to her talk: my eyes were glued to the window, ears strained for the slightest indication of Fred’s approaching van.

Once it appeared from around the corner, I rushed Maddy through the last few steps of her routine, pushed her out of the door and into her seat in the van, locked the front door and scrambled in beside of Maddy.

“Fred, you need to drop me off at the library and then you have to go to the City Hall.” I garbled out in one homogenous mess of indistinct syllables, adding, “After we drop Maddy off at school.”

“What!” Maddy blurted, “No! You guys ditched me when you went to the house, and you _promised_ I could go with you to the next one.”

“But Maddy, you shouldn’t be bunking off school,” Daphne hesitantly argued, “Your education is really important.”

“You’re bunking off, why can’t I?”

Maddy, somehow, managed to stare down four fifteen/sixteen-year-olds and a dog into doing what she wanted. Fred pulled over so that I could use one of the few telephone booths in Crystal Cove to call Maddy’s school to tell them she was sick and would be unable to come in. I then called our school to tell the receptionist that we were doing impromptu research on the goings-on of City Hall with Fred’s father and so we won’t be in school that day.

And with that, we headed off to the library.

As we drove there, I explained the plan to them even giving Maddy an honorary role, so she didn’t feel left out. I told them as much of the mystery as they needed to know, saving some parts for the grand reveal.

“How come Maddy gets an honorary role yet I’m still being ‘trialled’?” Fred whined, “I’ve driven you all everywhere you needed to be, haven’t I? I’ve been part of Mystery Inc. basically since it started!”

“That’s because Maddy was polite and asked nicely.” Shaggy told him rather condescendingly, “She said ‘please’.”

“Did you say ‘please’?” Daphne asked her, which was the exact question I was going to ask.

“Sure.” Maddy shrugged.

The library had only just opened when we arrived, so I scrambled for my things and clambered out of the van. “The meeting’s in half an hour, but it’ll take me a little while to find everything and get there in time, so I need you to distract them before it goes ahead, got it?”

“Got it,” Daphne repeated, slamming the van door shut as Fred (rather recklessly) forced down his foot down on the accelerator to send the van flying down the road towards City Hall.

Like a fish to water, I’m in my element. Most of the things are easy enough to find, they were exactly where I’d left them the night before, but one item, in particular, seemed to have disappeared: the record from the night of the snowstorm. It wasn’t with the other vacancy documents from the era, which is where I’d returned it to, and neither was the photocopy editions that the librarian had made for me. I checked under the filing cabinet in case it had slipped underneath, but nothing. I checked the other years, just in case someone had accidentally put it back in the wrong place, but, again, nothing.

Glancing at my watch, I saw I had maybe five minutes, if that, before the meeting started. Left with no choice, I went to talk to the librarian to ask him to make a new photocopy for me.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that at the minute.” he said sadly, “Mr Hyde borrowed the original last night, not long after you left actually, so it’s not currently available. He promised to return it by three o’clock today, though, so if you come back then I can make you another copy?”

Quickly thanking the librarian, I gathered my things and started running towards City Hall, praying between panted breaths that I make it in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost exactly a year from where Daphne is in the story in the "now" section as she arrived in Crystal Cove in mid-December. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> \- MoonRenegade


	41. Chapter 41

_**Daphne, now:** _

Alexi leads me back downstairs, the too-big-for-her Santa hat bobbing up and down with her steps. I hear Fred opening the door again and calling for Alexi to come to greet whoever it is. With a quick smile at me, Alexi strands me on the stairs, rushing off to see to the newcomer. I wonder if they make Alexi greet every single one of these guests? That seems a bit extreme, given that Alexi didn’t seem to really know a lot of the people as we had walked passed them.

From the hallway, I hear excited babbling, a couple of barks, and some cooing.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Fred, I had to go pick these guys up from the vet,” I hear a voice saying as they approach. The person is turning their head away from me so I can’t get a good look at their face, but their electric blue hair is a dead giveaway, “Do any of Cheese’s puppies take your fancy, Lexie?”

“All of them!” she says to Ray, who chuckles in response.

He turns around, and we come eye to eye. Or close enough, I’m actually a little taller than Ray.

“Oh, hi!” he says cheerily as he takes off his coat and hands it to Shaggy, who disappears off with it, “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” I reply matching his blithe tone, whipping the turkey hat off my head and behind my back. Alexi glares at me from behind Fred’s back, furious that I’d taken it off. I stick my tongue out at her to try and make amends, but she still seems somewhat irate. It’s only until one of the puppies boops her hand that she smiles once again.

“Oh, you already know Alexi’s brother, Daphne?” Fred asks, battling away Alexi’s requests to adopt _all_ of the puppies as he steps towards us, “That’s great, the two of you make yourselves comfortable, I’m going to put the dogs upstairs before they cause any more chaos. There’s food and drinks through that hall over there.”

We start making our way to the kitchen, the lure of snacks is, naturally, irresistible.

“You’re … Alexi’s brother?” I ask cautiously, treading carefully to not overstep his boundaries, “As in you were also…?”

“No, we have the same biological parents. I went into the foster care system before she was born, so I didn’t know she even existed until I went about looking for my biological parents after I aged out of the adoption system,” he explained nonchalantly, “I found Alexi as well as three older half-siblings, but none of them have returned my calls so I’ve never met them in person. They’re all grown up now, I can understand them wanting to put their pasts behind them. Why are _you_ here, though?”

“Could you not ask for Fred and Shaggy’s help, though, if you aged out of the system?” I ask, ignoring Ray’s question for now. I can’t help it, the journalistic instinct is to learn more about any given situation, regardless of social norms, “Life is tough if you don’t have anything or anyone to fall back on. You’d think they’d at least offer you a place in their home since you’re basically family. It’s not like they can’t afford it.”

“They offered, but I refused. If you don’t have anything to fall back on, you simply don’t fall.” he smiles, “Now, why are you here again?”

“Alexi’s godmother, Velma, invited me.” I explain, “She’s one of the people we went to the vet with, remember?”

“Yeah, I know her, but I didn’t know you guys were dating, congratulations!” Ray says, grabbing a champagne flute from the counter and toasting me, “You guys are really cute together, I could see it from when I first met you two.”

I feel my back prickle. Ray’s misunderstanding attracts me. It would be so much easier to just go along with it, not to argue about it and just pretend for the day. But also. I’ve read fake dating AUs before. I know exactly what happens when you tempt fate like that. I haven’t talked to Velma about it, anyway, and last time we talked about our relationship, we’d agreed to just be friends. For now, anyway. It’s the responsible thing to do.

“Firstly, we- _I_ met you yesterday, you can hardly say that we belong together or we’re soulmates or whatever-,” I manage to stammer out.

“Sure.” Ray raises an eyebrow.

“-and anyway, we’re not dating,-,” I continue,- “we used to, but we’re not anymore, we’re _just friends_.”

“No, no, I get it, you guys are keeping it low-key.” Ray says, still misunderstanding, “It’s chill, I can keep a secret.”

“What are you two nattering about?” Shaggy asks jovially, handing me a glass of … something? It looks like a really dark and wet red wine, but it’s in a whisky glass, and it’s fizzing. “Drink it, it’s really good. Fred brought it back from his travels in Australia.”

Shrugging, I do so. It can’t hurt, and apparently, Australian wine is really good from what I’ve heard from Bernie in the Travel department-.

It’s just cola.

I glare at Shaggy, who sniggers at me. Of course, he never changed.

“We were just talking about Velma.” Ray informs Shaggy in a rather hushed tone that conveys far more information than his words, “She’s so nice, isn’t she?”

“You ship it?” Shaggy gasps, “Same!”

“For the last time, _Velma and I are not dating_!” I insist, the anger starting to bubble a little as the frustration creeps into my voice. “In an ideal world, yes, we would, but this isn’t some fanfiction about us or a soap dedicated to our relationship: it’s my life, and I’d appreciate some respect and privacy if you _don’t mind_.”

I pick up one of the glasses of alcohol on the counter, I don’t bother looking at what it is, and down what I can. “Where’s the door to the garden? I need some air.”

_**Velma, 1995:** _

Panting, I stumbled through the City Hall foyer, rushing passed the security team who were too busy enjoying their morning cups of coffee to care. An absentminded intern held the door open for me, and the receptionist helped me pick up some of the papers I had dropped after nearly barreling into her.

“Thanks!”

According to the floorplans I had checked last night, this should be the last stretch: down the way too long corridor, and the last door on the left should be the meeting room. Running down the length of the hallway seemed to take an eternity, my feet dragged through the air like it was the most viscous mud in the world. My steps pounded at the same rate as my heart yet making a dent in the distance between me and that door seemed impossible.

Finally, finally, the door is within reach. With superfluous force, I slammed the door open, shouting, “Stop!” as I did so.

A room full of pasty white faces turned to me. There were a couple of variations on pallid white, like a tomato-red faced man in the too-tight suit and the rosy cheeks of the Chair of the Committee, but Maddy has more colour in her pinky fingertip than the entirety of this room. Mr Hyde rose from his seat like a furious vampire but embarrassedly sat back down again after a look from the Chair.

“And how can we help you, young lady?” the Chair asked politely, “You better have a good reason for interrupting a meeting like this.”

“I do, actually!” I said, stepped towards the chair, “If I may, ma’am, could I please plead my case?”

“Sure, just make it quick.” she waved away the security force and flopped back into her seat, clearly expecting this to be rather dull.

I laid out the case for her and the rest of the room: the letter we’d received from the previous owners, the strange occurrences surrounding the house, and what we’d found when we entered the house.

With the help of the evidence we’d gathered and from the first-hand accounts of my friends and Fred, I told the chair the full story, or what I theorise the story to be.

Essentially: Mr Hyde and Dr Blackwell in the 80s were looking for a house to live in and potentially start a family in. They came across the house on the corner of Claremont Road, but couldn’t afford it at the time and so concocted a plan to acquire the house using malevolent actions. They decided to portray the house as haunted, and so Dr Blackwell, an amateur historian, constructed a story about how the plot of land had been a Children’s Home in the 1800s, fitted the house with creepy old furniture full of old money, and paid one of the neighbourhood children to bury their broken toys in the backyard to plant the seed of ghosts in the community.

But their plan was temporarily foiled when the Miller family bought the house first despite the rumours of hauntings (they hadn’t heard them as they had lived out of state). Instead of giving up, they doubled down on their efforts and prepped the house for their arrival: setting up frozen clocks, painting and wallpapering over ominous messages, that kind of thing. They also made the most of a snowstorm locking everyone on the street inside their homes; Mr Hyde abused his position as secretary and altered the documents, listing the house as vacant so that their rescue was significantly delayed.

“But do you have evidence of that?” the Chair asked, “There’s nothing in the documents you’ve given me that proves that.”

“Mr Hyde, do you mind opening your briefcase for us?”

Mr Hyde, who had been turning redder and redder as I laid out the story, went even brighter. Bingo.

“I don’t see why I should comply,” he said indignantly.

“Victor, do as the young lady says,” the Chair instructed in a rather sombre tone, “These are accusations with serious implications, and it would be in your best interest to comply.”

Grumbling, Mr Hyde opens up his briefcase and lets the original document listing the home statuses, as well as half a dozen photocopies, fall out of the briefcase. I picked up the original and showed it the Chair.

“See, ma’am, if you look here, you’ll see that a piece of paper has been stuck over the original document right where the status of number 54, the house in question, is listed.” I held it up to the light, “And now you can see the writing underneath spells out the truth: occupied.”

“But that doesn’t explain the erratic behaviour of Mr Miller during the snowstorm and the subsequent days.” The Chair pointed out, tucking away the document into the report file of evidence I’d given her.

“I can explain that Miss, if I may?” Shaggy stepped forwards, “Mr Miller had narcolepsy and had been taking amphetamine to treat it. Dr Blackwell, who had been the one supplying these drugs, increased the dosage without telling him, thus causing the psychotic episodes.”

“I thought amphetamines were safe to take long term.” the Chair wondered out loud, “The FDA approved them, anyway.”

“They are if you take them in the low dosages usually prescribed to patients, but I discovered this morning that Mr Miller had been given very high amounts, equal to that of recreational use.” Shaggy continued, “Dr Blackwell’s secretary helped me find the pharmacy receipts to prove that.”

“Okay, and what about the youngest son, Sam, seeing a woman inside their home at night?” the Chair asked, making notes of what we were saying, “Was that Dr Blackwell?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was.” Fred, this time, stepped forwards, “I went to talk to the locksmith and found out that Dr Blackwell had asked him to make a copy of the key to number 54 not long before the snowstorm. According to some of the neighbours, they had seen someone fitting Dr Blackwell’s description entering and exiting the home at all hours of the day, but mostly at night.”

“Did no one report it to the police?” the Chair seemed particularly antsy about this point, “You’d hope that the neighbours would care at least a little about.”

“Most assumed the house was still empty,-” Fred explained,- “and those that knew the family also knew that Mr Miller had narcolepsy and assumed that Dr Blackwell had been called to help him as he tended to hurt himself by accident.”

“Right.” the Chair paused to finish writing her notes, then turned to us once more to ask, “And what about the more recent reports of hauntings, and the photos you mentioned?”

“Those aren’t real, you Honour,” Daphne said, handing over her stack of photos, “The ghost in them, that is.”

“Just call me Chairwoman, young lady,” the Chair replied, flicking through the photos she had been provided, “And how exactly are these faked?”

“Well, I can only guess, but I researched it and talked to the local theatre riggers, so I believe Mr Hyde set up an amateur version of an automated rigging system using his old fishing equipment.” Daphne suggested, “In the photo of the ghost, you’ll see that there is a fly line behind them. Oh, and the ghost is wearing the mask and vampire costume that were on sale last year at the costume store.”

“Well then,” the Chair put down her pen and picked up her gavel, “I think I speak for everyone when I say: Mr Hyde, you cannot purchase number 54 Claremont Road. Also, you are not a good person, you messed up an innocent family's life just because you wanted a house to be a little cheaper. Meeting adjourned.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience!
> 
> Hope you like this chapter, I may or may not have written it in a frenzied couple of hours...
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	42. Chapter 42

_**Daphne, now:** _

Fury boils my blood as I stormed out of the house, leaves crunching in a rather satisfying manner beneath my feet. The cold air smacking me in the face does cool my temper somewhat, but not enough to head back inside and face my demons. Fred and Shaggy’s garden is a little overgrown, what you expect from a suburban family. A white picket fence marks out the boundaries on all sides, both left and right lead to the back yard of the houses next door, but the fence parallel to the house separates the house from a nature reserve. I can’t see far into it despite the sunlight, as the tall line of trees blocks most of my vision. The trees and bushes in the garden are dwarfed by blustering giants of trees on the other side of the fence, making the entire house feel like a dollhouse that wouldn’t look out of place in Alexi’s room. A little swing set, clearly made with Alexi in mind, gently rocks in the breeze. There’s a bench on the patio by the door, but its rotting wood was not very appealing, so I instead opted for the slightly damp grass.

Music and idle chatter bubble out from the house, filling the garden with a melancholic soundtrack of solitude. If the sun had already set, I could imagine this scene fitting in perfectly in a coming-of-age movie. The protagonist comes out to sit in the garden while the party continues inside, and their love interest, or sometimes best friend, sits with them to calm them down. 

The voices and music from inside get louder as the door opens, then slightly muffled once more as the door closes. What gives _them_ the right to-?

“Daphne?”

Oh.

I raise my empty glass to the figure approaching from behind me, “Here.”

Velma sits down next to me, placing her plate on the ground between us. The plate seemed to signify a boundary between us. It’s such a small action, putting the plate between us, but it comes across as a line in the sand, although whether it’s to stop her or me is unclear. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t ask about how I’m feeling or why I’m out here. Her quiet understanding is more than enough to quench the last flames of anger.

“How long are you staying for?” she asks, not looking at me. Her eyes are fixed on the birdfeeder hanging on one of the trees.

“Until the day before Christmas Eve.”

“You’re not even staying for Christmas?” her face crumples slightly with disappointment, “I mean, I figured you weren’t staying for New Year’s, but not- you can’t go that early!”

“Sorry, I have to cover for one of my co-workers.” I say apologetically, “And what do you mean I can’t go? You’re not going to hold me hostage, are you?”

She doesn’t laugh at my half-arsed attempt at a joke, “But I had so many things planned for us to do together! You could’ve helped me decorate a tree or the apartment or the bakery for Christmas, we could’ve wrapped presents together, we could’ve made Christmas cookies to give out to our neighbours, we could’ve made soup for the poor and hungry-,”

Why does Christmas have to be such a busy time filled with activities? I just want to spend some time with the people I care about if I want to do anything at all. My ideal Christmas Eve or Christmas Day would just be sitting by a fireplace with maybe some alcohol and my cats and the people I love around me.

“Velma, we can do all of those things you want to do, but we just have… slightly less time to do them in.” I offer, “Also, why are you talking about us like we’re a couple? They’re _your_ neighbours, _your_ apartment, _your_ bakery, not _our_ _s_.”

“You know what I meant,” she says quietly, adding more cheerfully after a pause, “Want something? I just picked up some random things from the buffet.”

“Thanks.” I pick up one of the small sandwiches, a tuna and mayo one I think?

Velma also picks up one of the sandwiches, egg cress, and places the plate to her left. The boundary is gone. She scoots up next to me so that our arms brush against each other like shy lovers whenever we move.

Not that I think Velma and I are lovers. Just-… yeah.

“Do you remember how we used to have picnics in the clearing?” she asks, “We would go in all weather, wouldn’t we. Snow, rain, sunshine, all of it.”

Velma gets that faraway look that by now I’d become accustomed to. I wonder what she’s thinking about now. Is she remembering our numerous picnics? The first one, when it had snowed? The ones when we’d gone stargazing? The one in which Shaggy “accidentally” fell into the river and needed Fred to rescue and cuddle him to keep him warm? The last one, as painful as the memory is?

Or is she remembering the mysteries we solved? The time we thought Shaggy and Scooby had been kidnapped? What about when Fred fell back down the stairs in shock? The time Andy made us take tetanus tests after Daphne slipped and cut her finger on a rusty spade (he was a very much a hypochondriac)? The countless other shenanigans we got up to?

I don’t know. I’m not going to ask, either. Whatever goes on in Velma’s head, as interesting as it would be to peer inside, should stay there unless she wants to let them spill out. If that were the case, it would be her prerogative, not mine.

Instead, I let the bubbling voices and music and the cooling breeze fill in the silence. We both daydreamed our time away, neither of us daring to say anything. After an eternity and a half, Velma is the first to move. She takes my hands and just… holds them.

“I’m cold,” she says simply.

Smiling, I let my head rest on her shoulder, “This is nice.”

“Mm.”

Ray, Shaggy, and Fred are no doubt gathered around one of the windows, jumping up and down with delight that one of their ships had gotten a little closer, but I didn’t care. I’d brushed off double-takes, homophobic slurs, and creepy looks for this woman last time we dated, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Not that this is going to lead to a relationship. 

Because we agreed the responsible thing would be to not date again. 

If only responsible also made you euphoric beyond reason.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

Deputy Bucky came along shortly after the committee decision. He already had Dr Blackwell in the back of his police car, looking particularly grouchy and grumpy, and Mr Hyde was set to promptly joined her. Mr Hyde also looked ticked off, but he seemed more desperate to escape his situation than Dr Blackwell did. Dr Blackwell was angry, sure, but angry in the manner of “how dare you mildly inconvenience me” rather than the “get your hands off me” kind of anger that Mr Hyde was displaying.

“I’m not entirely sure why we’re arresting you, but I’ve been told you need to come with me,… so…” Deputy Bucky said, sweat pouring from his body out of sheer nervousness.

Bless him, I don’t think he’s ever had to arrest anyone before. Not in this tiny town anyway.

“We would’ve gotten away with it, too-,” Mr Hyde screamed as he was led to the cop car,- “If it hadn’t been for you- you meddling kids!”

We waited for the car to disappear before starting to celebrate. I hugged Daphne joyously, jumping in time to her as I did so. I also gave Shaggy and Scooby both high fives and a Scooby snack each. Fred looked at me with puppy eyes, so for once, I obliged and also gave him a high five.

“This doesn’t mean that you’re part of Mystery Inc., by the way.” I said, sticking my tongue out at him, “It just means I tolerate you a little bit. For now.”

He protested, but gave up within moments, knowing it’s a futile argument at this point, and that I’m only really doing it to piss him off. Shaggy bumped his shoulder endearingly, which I suppose is somewhat comforting?

I don’t know, boys are confusing.

Not nearly as confusing as Daphne, but that’s for different reasons.

_Is_ she straight? We never really had The Conversation, so I don’t think she knows that _I’m_ not. So… is she a straight girl being a straight girl, playfully flirting with her friends? Does she realise I like- _MIGHT_ like- her, and is just teasing me about it? Or, maybe, does she like me back?

NOT THAT I LIKE HER.

Shaggy and Fred vanished at some point between the shoulder bump and me being lost in my thoughts, leaving Daphne, Maddy, Scooby and me outside City Hall scratching our heads.

Daphne, with a knowing look in her eye, suggested that we all head home, “It doesn’t look like Fred and Shaggy have gone back to school, and we wouldn’t want them to get in trouble.”

“And we can’t exactly send Maddy back to school after we told them that she was ill.” I added, “And there’s no way you’re going to be at home by yourself.”

“I’d manage. I’ve been home alone by my self before.” Maddy said cheerfully, “Dad sometimes had to go do business at night, and he wouldn’t come home until the next evening.”

Daphne and I shared a look.

“Well, we’re not your dad, so we’re all going to go to Velma’s -yes, you too, Scooby- and make something for lunch.” Daphne urged already pushing us down the path, “C’mon, let’s go!”

As Fred was the only ones with keys to the Mystery Inc. van, we had no way of getting all of our belongings locked inside. I was the only one who still had my backpack, as I had taken it with my into the library, but I didn’t have enough money to cover all our bus fares, so we ended up having to walk the nearly two miles between my house and City Hall.

Somehow, I was the most in-shape out of all four of us, despite having already run from the library to City Hall. Scooby was coping, but we did have to take breaks now and then so that he could catch up; he was almost an old dog by that point. Daphne had, of course, decided to wear heels that morning, and had within minutes opted to walk barefooted instead.

“I’m not breaking my ankles or the heels just because Fred decided to f*ck off-,”

I reflexively cover Maddy’s ears.

“-with Shaggy.” Daphne grumbled, “He owes us one after this, doesn’t he?”

“Mm. Do you want to put your shoes in my backpack?” I uncovered Maddy’s ears and slid the backpack off of my back onto my arm, “Save you carrying them the whole way there.”

“Thanks,” Daphne smiled graciously and placed the heels into my bag. They dug into my back a little, but I pushed the pain out of my mind. _I’m just helping a friend_ , I told myself.

Halfway home, Maddy started to stumble on her steps. I took off my backpack and placed them on her shoulders. Stooping down, I gesture for her to climb on.

She seemed uncertain, as though she wasn’t sure she could fully trust me, but some coaxing from Daphne gave her that last boost of confidence needed.

Maddy clambered on, and I shifted her weight about until it felt comfortable.

“Ready?” I asked Maddy, mischief on my mind having already exchanged glances with Daphne. I felt Maddy nod into my neck, “Hold on.”

As fast as I could, I sprinted down the street. Naturally, Daphne joined in on the chase with Scooby at her heels. Maddy squealed with delight, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. Daphne whooped as she momentarily overtook me. Too busy glancing behind at us and gloating, she doesn’t notice the loose pavement tile, causing her to stumble just long enough for us to overtake her once and for all.

I let Maddy hop off and we waited a few seconds for Daphne and Scooby to catch up before reaching out and touching the lamppost.

“We won, Maddy!” I cheered, “In your face, Daphne!”

Laughing, Daphne and I shook hands in a show of good showmanship. And with that, we were off again.

Maddy climbed onto my back, and Scooby was carried the rest of the way home. Maddy was fairly light on my back, too light almost, so it was no real bother to carry her the rest of the way home.

_I have to make sure this girl gets more to eat_ , I thought to myself, _I don’t think I could live myself in anything happened to her, especially while she’s in my care._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this week's chapter is early, but you know what. It's Christmas.  
> And it's been a particularly sh*tty year, so here you go, something to (hopefully) enjoy in the final days of this nightmare of a year. 
> 
> Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy whatever-you-may-or-may-not-be-celebrating, and enjoy your day. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading and all of the lovely comments,  
> -MoonRenegade


	43. Chapter 43

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Should we head back inside?” I suggest, “It’s a bit cold out here.”

Velma nods. I stand up first, offering a hand to Velma to help her up. She takes it, causing tingles to run up and down my arm, and I pull her up off the ground with a bit too much force. Velma stumbles a little, careering straight into my shoulder, knocking both of us back to the ground again with a thud.

Laughing, I help her up again, more gently this time, and dust myself off.

“Danger-prone Daphne strikes again!” Velma jokes, prompting me to pose like a superhero, making her laugh even more.

God, I love that laugh.

Just the laugh, though.

Not the woman that sourced it.

Just the laugh.

Yep.

It’s so pretty, that laugh. It’s this wondrously light bubbling and comforting sound, like soup simmering on a cold rainy day. It fills the air around me with warmth and joy; it seems to intoxicate me. I feel untouchable. The iciness of the party had dissipated, replaced with some more welcoming vibes. It’s like being a small child again, wrapped in the softest, cosiest blanket in the house on Christmas Day, waiting for your parents to wake up so you can open your presents.

It’s like magic, that laugh. I hadn’t realised how much I missed it until now.

“You alright, Daphne?” Velma asks, breaking my train of thought, “You seem a bit spaced out.”

“I’ve missed you…”

I can’t resist it. I pull Velma into a hug, burying my face into her shoulder. She hesitates, pausing before she puts her arms around my neck.

“I missed you, too,” she whispers into my neck. She mumbles something else, but it’s too quiet for me to catch the words.

Stepping back, I glance at her face, “What did you-?”

Velma turns away from me, picks up a handful of frosty leaves that were piled up in the corner of the garden and lets them fall onto my head like autumnal confetti.

“Hey-!”

Obviously, I had to reciprocate after shaking the leaves out of my hair. Like children, we fervently stuff icy leaves down each other’s shirt, rub them in each other’s faces, and push each other onto the pile of leaves.

We play with the leaves, scattering them about the place until our fingers are blocks of ice wrapped in skin and our cheeks are flush from the exertion.

Velma pushes me into the pile first, the leaves cushioning my fall despite their damp coolness. When she offers me her hand to help me up, I jerk her hand towards me, so she falls into the pile of leaves right after me.

We lie next to each other, staring at the boughs of the tree hanging over us.

Her laugh, that incredibly beautiful laugh, rings through the air once more. I wish I could bottle this feeling and take it back to New York with me. It would be a shining beacon, protecting me from the cold of the apartment, or Mathew’s predatory nature, or the imminent threat of being laid off. 

But let’s be honest: Velma and I could never date. She doesn’t want to, and can’t, live in New York, and there’s no way I’m living in Crystal Cove.

I don’t know how Velma does it. Of the four of us, Velma was the one who wanted to leave this place the most, closely followed by me, yet she’s the only one who’s still stuck here. Even Shaggy left Crystal Cove and considering he never wanted to move out of his parent’s place, that’s pretty impressive.

She must’ve left for college, though, since there’s nowhere near here that does culinary training, as far as I’m aware. The maths doesn’t quite add up when I think about it.

Velma said she studied for six years before getting the bakery, plus one year as an apprentice, and had the bakery for a few years now. Which means that there’s nearly a decade between since the last time I saw her and when she started studying to be a baker. What was she doing during that time?

That’s far too long a period to simply be the result of her taking a gap year or something, so she had to have been doing _something_.

I shift slightly so we’re eye to eye, “Velma, can I ask you a question?”

“Mm, yeah.” she said with a slight smirk, she leaned forwards and flicked my nose, “You just did. I’m kidding, go on.”

“What did you do after I left Crystal Cove?” I ask, “I’m guessing you didn’t go straight into the bakery business.”

“Oh, I went to Stanford for Physics and became a tenured professor there.” she says nonchalantly, as though she was describing her morning routine, “It was pretty fun, they had some good halls of residence and the catering was alright.”

“ _You what, sorry?_ ”

Just as I said those words, the back door to Fed and Shaggy’s house bursts open as Cheese bounds through it, with some of her puppies trailing behind her, accompanied by Alexi, holding the remaining puppies.

I see Fred, Shaggy, and Ray standing by the door with identical looks of panic on their faces. Hurriedly, they slam the door on themselves, ducking below the pane of glass in the door.

I stifle a laugh at the thought of the three of them, crammed into the space between the wall and the counter by the door, trying desperately not to be seen. It’s too amusing to cause me any more anger, although they will eventually get an earful about this.

“Auntie Velma!” Alexi calls out, “Look at these puppies, aren’t they adorable? What are you doing in the leaf pile?”

She tuts, kicking some of the leaves we’d moved from the pile in the vague direction of the original pile, “You shouldn’t make a mess in the garden when the gardener is on holiday, you know.”

“That’s alright, we can clean it up.” Velma says soothingly, placing her hands onto Alexi’s shoulders, “Plus, look, the puppies like playing in it.”

Alexi’s face lights up immediately. She lets the puppies that she’s holding join the ones on the ground, watching with delight as the shuffled about “playing” with the leaves.

I never understood why people want children. They’re expensive, sticky, and just generally a pain to deal with, but watching Alexi, I think I get it.

Just like with Maddy, I would protect this child with my life.

Only, I’d have to do a better job than last time.

_ **Velma, 1995:** _

“Right, well, what do we already know about our mystery?” I asked the crew.

We were back in our club room, the abandoned one that Fred had thrown stuff about in last year, and scratching our heads over the mystery. The school had let us redecorate the room, even giving us a small budget to allow us to do so (something about it looking good on the prospectus to have an ambitious and involved club), so it no longer looked completely abandoned.

The walls had been given a new lick of paint, the floor had been fully hoovered and decluttered. Daphne and I had even installed some bookshelves on the wall while the boys bickered about the best way to carry a filing cabinet up the stairs.

It didn’t look too bad if I do say so myself.

We’d put some memorabilia from our past mysteries on one of the shelves: the magic book that Fred had planted in the library, a picture frame with a photo of the five of us at the gala, the pack of cards from Andy’s mansion (we may have forgotten to return that…), a Star Wars figurine that Melissa had given me to apologise about the notebook incident, and the mask from the figure in the Claremont Road house (I don’t really know why the police let us have it, but they did).

On one of the other shelves, we had a binder folder for each of the mysteries solved, except for Melissa’s one, which had a report file as Melissa had insisted on writing it up herself. Inside each of the binder folders, was all of the evidence gathered and how we came to the conclusions that we did.

One of the files, the one about the school, lay open on the desk. Its papers as scattered about the table as we were just rooting through every tidbit of information we had. Unlike with other cases, we had _way_ too much information and “evidence” than we could handle. Normally, we are clambering over ourselves to gather the information that’s relevant to the case, but with this one, so many pieces of information overlap and contradict each other, it’s like we’re solving eight different mysteries at once.

“Okay, so, you weren’t the only one to see the figure and hear the whistling,” Daphne started, “Hannah from our Chemistry class also heard and saw it-,”

“Yeah, but Mr Mathews in Woodshop said that that was just the groundkeeper,” Shaggy interjected, “They’re best friends, he would know.”

“But the groundskeeper isn’t in on Tuesdays,” I pointed out, “The figure has only been spotted on Tuesdays.”

“We don’t know that the figure is related to the scream, though, they just happen to both be near the old special ed classrooms.” Fred said, rather dismissively, “Look, ladies, we can’t be jumping to conclusions here.”

The rest of us all shot him daggers before continuing our conversation, making sure to ignore any further input from Fred. 

“Is there anything in the school’s history that could explain this?” I asked, “Does something special happen on Tuesdays?”

“Taco Tuesday?” Scooby suggested.

“Anything else?” I prompted, “Guys, I only moved here at the start of the year, you’re going to have to help me out here.”

“If you want, I can try to sneak into the receptionist’s office or butter up the librarian to get some information?” Daphne suggested, “The librarian is probably as old as the school itself.”

“Mrs Green is sixty-one, she retires next year.” I pointed out, about to add that she could hardly be called as old as the school until Daphne remarked that it only proved her point. Rolling my eyes, I continued, “Any rituals the members of staff or people who nearby do?”

“Hayden lives down the road and does elevenses every Tuesday.” Shaggy stated, “He lets us join, doesn’t he, Scooby?”

“Do you ever attend a full day of school?” I couldn’t help but ask, “You’re always stepping out for this and that, so you always seem to be late to or even miss a lesson.”

Shaggy shrugged, “I go to all the classes I need to go to.”

“Which should be all of them?” Shaggy didn’t respond, so I continued once more, “Okay, how about this groundskeeper guy, what do we know about him?”

“Mr Mathews and he are very good friends.” Shaggy said again, “He’s a Pisces-,”

“We can’t trust him.” Daphne said immediately, pausing prior to adding, “Sorry, my mum’s recently got me into horoscopes after I told her about Andy’s mystery…”

“Hey!” Fred interjected once more, “But, I’m a Pisces…!”

“Mm, I figured.” Daphne said, turning to us once again, “Should we go talk to-?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fred, as dramatic as ever, bounded from his seat and started ranting around Daphne, “I thought – but you’re a Gemini! You’re arguably the worst star sign, what do you mean “I figured”??”

As Fred continued to rant angrily at her, Daphne swatted him away like a particularly annoying fly and kept talking, “Do you want to go talk to the groundskeeper? It seems like we might get some good insight from that.”

“Maybe, I’m not sure yet, we don’t want to spark any suspicion,” I replied, pointing to Daphne, “We should definitely talk to the librarian, though.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Shaggy asked, handing me the meeting minutes, “Feel free to add it at the bottom of the sheet.”

The minutes are fairly accurate, so I don’t bother altering it other than continuing the game of hangman in the corner and noting that Fred had been a pain in the ass again. 

“Course of action,” I recited while writing, “Daphne: sneak into the receptionist’s office and gather information about Tuesdays and maybe something about the school’s history? Nothing too specific, this is just some background research work.”

“Coolio,” Daphne said, writing it down in her purple planner to remind herself.

“Shaggy: talk to Mr Mathews about the groundskeeper.” I instructed, watching as he tried to write everything I said on his hand, “Keep it casual, though, just ask about him in general. Any weird hobbies, favourite foods, does he have any family, that kind of thing. Maybe make it sound like you’re planning a surprise party to say thank you or something.”

“Good, got it,” Shaggy confirms.

“And for me: go talk to the librarian.” I motioned to put the lid on my pen to signify the end of our meeting until I noticed Fred’s pleading face. I’m tempted to use this opportunity to get back at him once again, but something tells me not to, “And finally, for Fred: you can go talk to the headteacher to see whether or not he can give us any more information.”

Fred’s face lights up like a Christmas tree, “Really?”

“Really.”

“Thank you!” he made a show of writing it down in his notebook, which he had been doodling on throughout the meeting, capping his pen with a flourish. 

Daphne shot me a smile of approval, sending butterflies straight to my stomach. 

God, the things I do for this girl. Even though she’s not even my girlfriend.

Not that I wish she was… right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure why, but I wrote another chapter in two days and I don't really want to wait until next week to post it, sooooooo, here you go. :)
> 
> I might actually write a bunch of chapters during the holidays and just use that to get a bit ahead as the past few weeks have been kind of stressful when it comes to getting chapters out on time thanks to exams, so if things seem a bit odd, that's probably why.
> 
> (also if anyone was wondering, my exams went great! I got two Bs, one B+, and an E (don't ask), which is pretty good considering I've only done a third of the course)
> 
> -MoonRenegade


	44. Chapter 44

_**Daphne, now:** _

When we headed back inside, the party was in full swing. Fred and Shaggy weren’t by the door anymore, but Ray was still hanging about, presumably to keep an eye on Cheese and her puppies. I nod in acknowledgement at him but don’t bother striking up a conversation as he’s already enraptured by his excited half-sister. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to do this, but I grasped Velma’s hand and cling to her for support as we re-join the party together.

Glancing at our joined hands, and then at my face, Velma smiles, “Thanks.”

“I- … Thank you more,” I reply stumbling over my own words.

“That’s not –,” Velma hesitates, contemplating correcting me and instead opting to simply tease, “Thank _you_ more.”

I’m the first to break eye contact, scanning the crowd for anyone I recognised. There were a few, but Dan, Claire’s brother, is the first to catch my eye. We head over towards him as he strikes me as a lonely figure, standing in the corner alone nursing a beer.

“Hi!” Velma is the one to start a conversation, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it has.” Dan seemed rather forlorn as he said this, as though the pressures and responsibilities of adult life were weighing upon him, “Thanks again, y’know with giving Emily a job? Sorry, I got my dad to thank you instead of going in person myself, but it just felt weird…”

“It’s cool, Daniel, it’s the least I could do.” Velma replied, “I needed an assistant, anyway. By the way, this is Daphne, you _should_ remember each other from high school?”

“Hi, Dan.”

I definitely remembered him. He was Claire’s little brother who had skipped a few grades and ended up in his older sister’s year, much to her embarrassment. I’d met him a few times, both in school and at Claire’s house whenever I’d stayed over, but I didn’t know that much about him other than he was a homophobe, which is why Claire said she kept the two of us apart as much as possible. I wonder if he still is homophobic. I doubt it, but you never really know, do you?

Mathew at the office managed to keep it under wraps until Mitch got married last year. Nearly got fired for it too, had he not taken another sensitivity training course.

“Actually, Daniel’s better, if you don’t mind,” Daniel says, a solemn look cast across his face like a dark shadow, “Only Claire calls me that, and we aren’t exactly talking at the minute.”

“Oh? How come?” Damn my journalistic curiosity to the sticking place! Why can’t I keep my nose out of these things?? “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I don’t know what came over me-,”

“It’s alright,” Daniel chuckles, “It’s just-… You know about Emily’s background, right?”

“I know the basics, yeah,” I nod.

“Yeah, well -God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this- I’ve always wanted the best for Emily after her… unfortunate introduction to the world,-” Daniel gets a glazed-over look in his eyes, as though he was no longer talking to us but simply vocalising his thoughts as they came along,- “and early on I decided that the best option for her would be to have proper parents, specifically my parents. I got a job a couple of months ago but it’s in Phoenix, so I won’t be able to see Emily every day anymore. It’s a good job, though, it pays well, and it could help pay for Emily to get through college instead of wasting away her life here in Crystal Cove working as a bakery assistant, no offence-,”

He glances at Velma who waves away the apology, “None taken.”

“But Claire seems to think that the best thing for Emily would be if I stayed in Crystal Cove and acted like a “real father”, what she means by that, I still don’t know. I just want to talk it out with her, get a woman’s perspective on matters, but she refuses to answer my calls.” Daniel sighs, “It’s times like these I wish Emily’s mother was still in the picture.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I say as consolingly as possible, ignoring the undercurrents of potential misogyny, “Is there no way you two will get back together again?”

Velma elbows me, hard, in the ribs.

“Hey! What was that for?”

Chuckling, Daniel adds starting in a nonchalant tone but shifting to a gloomier one towards the end, “She died the day Emily was born. Car crash, y’know. They could only save Emily, but not…”

Daniel’s eyes pool with tears, threatening to spill over at any moment.

“So, what are you doing?” Velma tries desperately to change the subject, undoing the damage I had just done, “Like a job, I mean?”

“I’m a pilot for American Air,” Daniel manages, swallowing back a sob, “It’s kind of fun, you get to stay in hotels for free, and stuff. And, I met Shaggy there because he did some catering for the company at one point.”

Velma’s got a knack for this kind of thing. While I can make anyone open up to me if I try hard enough, “journalistic touch” as one of the editors put it once, I’m not very good at the aftercare. Usually, I hand them a tissue, if I’m feeling particularly generous, and head on my way. I don’t have time to waste offering comfort to someone who will be out of my life as soon as the story is published. Velma, though… She’s perfect.

At this, I mean. Comforting people. Making them feel better.

Just look at what she did with Alexi earlier about the leaves.

Strangers on the internet might call that “manipulating” and “toxic”, but it’s just handling the situation in a socially acceptable so that of the people involved come out on top in the end. I know Velma has some form of anxiety, she’s had it since before we graduated high school, and it doesn’t look like it’s magically gone away yet, so I hope that she doesn’t see herself in a negative light because of this.

It’s beautiful how she handles situations, it’s like a ballet of societal expectations: tiptoeing around some men’s fragile masculinity and difficult topics, swooping to dodge other’s egos, bowing graciously to praise, and pirouetting away from harm. I couldn’t imagine anyone doing it better than she did.

I could imagine her, though, lying in bed alone tonight agonising over every little thing she thought she did wrong. I give her hand a small squeeze and remind myself to thank her properly later.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

The next day, we went about collecting as much information as we could. I went to talk to the librarian, while Fred conversed with the headmaster, Daphne entertained the receptionist, and Shaggy and Scooby went to chat with Mr Mathews. We planned to meet in the clubroom immediately after to share our information and eat lunch. Technically, we had been forbidden from eating in the classroom as the janitors tended to ignore the abandoned classrooms, and so any messes we left would simply accumulate, but we didn’t feel entirely comfortable spilling the school’s secrets in the cafeteria.

As I was planning on visiting the school library anyway, it was no bother to head along straight from English.

The librarian, Mrs Robertson, was a lovely lady; she would always go a bit further than she needed to for a child. She helped run the school’s breakfast club, where students could come in before school to have something to eat for free, so they didn’t start the day with an empty stomach. She had a cupboard in the library with spare clothing for students with they ever got cold, had something spilt on them, or their clothes got damaged in any way. Mrs Robertson was always the one students would head for if someone was having a panic attack, wasn’t feeling well, or was just upset in general, and she made sure to learn every student’s name by their second term in school.

Basically, she was an angel.

As it was my second term in school by then, Mrs Robertson knew my name, as well as my favourite genres and authors, “Ah, Velma! That new Ben Ravencroft book just came in; it’s got your name on it.”

“Thanks, miss!” I slid my backpack off my shoulders and dug out a letter, “By the way, Miss Jensen told me to give this to you.”

Tania and Mrs Robertson had been friends when they were younger but had only recently reconciled after Mrs Robertson found out that Tania was staying in the Jensen Manor (I may or may not have something to do with that particular revelation…). They’d been exchanging letters for the past few weeks and planned on meeting after Tania’s tuberculosis officially cleared up with the aid of hospital treatment. I’d been ferrying letters between them, mostly because I wanted to help these two women become friends once more, but also because I wanted to talk to both of them frequently anyway. They had such interesting stories to tell from their youth!

Both of them went to this school and caused quite a bit of chaos in their time (like the time they organised a riot after the headteacher announced that girls would also be caned like the boys and the school had to call the police to help stop it as it got so out of hand).

“Do you want to help me in the back for a second, Velma?” she asked, “The box with the new deliveries is quite heavy, and Mr Brown isn’t in today to help me with it.”

Nodding, I stepped into the back office as Mrs Robertson held the door open for me.

The back office was this tiny box room where the librarians stored new deliveries, significantly damaged books destined for recycling, and the precious few books that had a significant place in the school’s history. The other office, the one on the other side of the library, was a brightly lit room with comfortable seating for librarians, teachers, and perturbed students to go and sit with a cup of coffee or tea, but the back office was the exact opposite of that. It was kept fairly dark to protect the special books and there were no comfortable surfaces to sit, both because it was discouraged and because there simply wasn’t space for it.

The box Mrs Robertson had been talking about was the one sitting unopened on the desk in the corner of the room. There was no seat for the desk, so the desk seemed to act as a shelter for boxes of books that huddled underneath it like rabbits taking refuge from the rain and thunder.

“Help yourself, sweetie, there are some more books in there that I think you might like, so take your time.” Mrs Robertson opened the letter from Tania as she spoke, “Just tell me later which ones you want to borrow.”

She was, of course, right, some books caught my interest. Far too many to borrow at once, let alone take home with me, so I took a mental note of the titles and authors.

“Mrs Robertson?” I asked light-heartedly, “Why do you go out of your way to help every student?”

“Hm?” she glanced up from the letter, “Well, why ever not? I wouldn’t want any student leaving this school feeling like they have no one they can rely on for help.”

“Have you ever let a student down, miss?”

I had asked the question in a joking manner, but from the way Mrs Robertson’s face fell, it was clear that she didn’t think this was a joke. Somberly, she folded up the letter, slipped it into her pocket, and grasped my hands.

“Velma. Look at me,” she said, staring directly into my eyes. It was a bit uncomfortable to do so, but I oblige, squirming a little as I did so, “If anyone bullies you or your friends or anyone you know, you come to talk to me, okay? Even if it’s just saying some mean things, tell me. Don’t bottle that up. Please, promise me.”

I nodded in response.

“Do you promise?” she asked with more insistence.

“Yeah, I p-… promise.”

“Alright then.” she let my hands go and stepped back, the smile returning to her face once more, “Did you find any books you liked?”

“Yep!” I said, “These three, please.”

“Ah, good choice.” Mrs Robertson replied, flicking through my choices, “This one used to be my favourite at your age.”

She lifted the books from my arms and led me back into the library. Our exchange was still ringing in my ears as she checked the books out for me and sent me off on my way, so I didn’t realise until I was nearly at the club room that I had forgotten to ask about the school’s history.

Never mind, I thought to myself, the others probably got something interesting, I’m sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've mentioned this here before, but I used to work in a library. I did some work experience a couple of years ago in which I was bounced from one library to another, and for two and a bit years I volunteered in my school's library as a library assistant after the senior librarian retired. It was actually really fun! 
> 
> My friends and I (who were also helping out) played hide and seek when it was being renovated, although we did get yelled at afterwards by one of the teachers who thought we had broken into the library. :')  
> Thank you for reading so far!  
> -MoonRenegade


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suicide
> 
> There is some mention of suicide in Velma's half of the chapter, so if you don't want to read that but still want to find out about what happened in the chapter, there's a tl;dr in the notes at the end of the chapter.

_**Daphne, now:** _

A clear, bell-like sound rings through the room, calling all of our attention to Fred, who was standing on a chair tapping a butter knife against a champagne flute.

“Everyone,” he says loudly, addressing all in the room, “If you’d like to join me in the kitchen, Alexi will be blowing out her candles soon.”

Fred sounded like a posher version of a carnival master, calling in the audience from far and wide to witness the miracle that is his only child. 

They’re such doting parents, Fred and Shaggy. You wouldn’t have thought it based on their behaviour in high school as they argued so much, especially in our first year of mystery-solving, but people change, they mature over time. I guess it’s better than the two of them neglecting Alexi and never acknowledging their pride towards her, both for them and her. 

The kitchen was too small to fit all forty-odd of us, so while the crowd parted for Velma to pass, like the Red Sea for Moses, it became one homogenous blob when I attempted to approach. _Velma’s going to record Alexi blowing out her candles on her phone anyway,_ I thought to myself, _so I might as well just stay out here._

I sit down on the now empty sofa in the sitting room.

I’m not the only one to stay back: there’s another woman in the room with me, sitting on the sofa opposite me. Her dark blonde hair is mostly tied back loosely, save for two small strands on each side of her face, framing it in a rather fascinating way. She meticulously flicks any specks of dust or dirt off of her expensive-looking clothing, although I doubt that there was any present to begin with. She takes a pocket mirror out of her handbag and inspects her make up.

I do my best to avoid eye contact, pretending to be busy on my phone, but to no avail. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her gaze shift from the mirror to me.

“Daphne?” she says hesitantly, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Casting my eyes up to meet hers, I do my best to smile politely, “Hi, Claire, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It sure has.” Claire picks up her bag, steps around the glass coffee table and sits down next to me, “How have you been?”

“I’ve been alright.” I’m tempted to leave my answer there, refusing to let her have any morsel of information she could use against me, but I suppose that for Velma’s, and Daniel’s, sake, I should make some effort to talk to her, “I moved to New York years ago, but I’m visiting my parents for the holidays.”

“Oh?” Claire looks around the empty room in an almost pantomime way, “Are they here too?”

“No, I’m here with Velma.” I explain, “We’re -,”

“You guys got back together again? Aw, that’s sweet,” Claire says oblivious to my blatant uncomfortableness at the misunderstanding, “I’m sorry about … you know, what happened back in high school. I suppose you could say it was the environment I was raised in, but really I should’ve known better by then.”

“Don’t apologise to me, Velma was the one who ultimately got hurt.” I say, adding, “And probably Peter, too.”

Claire sighs, staring down at her lap, where she’s fiddling with the latch on her pocket mirror. “I already have, multiple times over, and she’s forgiven me every single time. She’s an angel, as you already know, I’m sure.”

“Mm.”

I’m not entirely sure what she means by this, but at this point, I’m three glasses of alcohol down and don’t care that much. It sounds like words in a sentence, and I vaguely comprehend her meaning, so that’s good enough.

“Velma gave Emily, my nie- sister, a job, even after everything, too.” Claire says, not pausing to let me tell her that I already know about Emily, “I know Emily isn’t the hardest of workers, and she definitely slacked off in the first few weeks, but after spending time with Velma, she’s turned into a better version of herself, y’know?”

“Why are you telling me this?” I can’t help but ask. Why _is_ everyone unloading on me today??

If this was a poorly written fanfic, the writer would be accused of being too lazy to write more creative ways of dumping exposition in the readers. I’ve seen some of the columnists argue for hours about whether this kind of writing is even acceptable in “real literature”.

Good thing my life isn’t a fanfiction! :D

“Why not?” Claire smiles an empty smile, devoid of any smackerel joy, “It’s not like I’m going to see you again, am I? Therapists are expensive, and I’ve got something to get off my shoulders.”

She stretches her arms up as she says this, her eyes squeezed shut.

I don’t say anything. _Did … Did she just use me to ditch her agonies of the week?_ I thought to myself, _why? Doesn’t she have, like, a million friends she can call and rant at?_

She gets up to leave, “Thanks for listening, anyway. I should probably go home, the sun’s starting to set.”

“Wait, do you – Daniel’s here, and he probably wants to talk to you.”

Claire blinks, “He’s what, sorry?”

“Your brother, he told me about how you guys weren’t talking and the stuff that was going on,” I say, regretting every word as they slipped from my lips. I want to swallow back the words, but there’s a tiny voice at the back of my head, it sounded like a younger version of Velma, compelling me to continue, “I don’t know everything, but I do know that he wants to talk to you.”

I know I shouldn’t meddle, but I can see someone waiting in the corridor. 

“Why would he tell you about what’s going on? He doesn’t even tell _me_.” Claire snaps back, “If he wanted to talk to me, he should meet me in person instead of bombarding me with calls and hiding in the shadows at a seven-year-old’s birthday party.”

“As you said, therapy’s expensive.” I point to the doorway, where a stunned Daniel stands, watching this unfold, “Also, he’s not exactly hiding.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Daniel points out, not clarifying if he means me or his sister.

“Eh, I tried.” I shrug, “Close enough.”

The two of them walk away, heading towards the porch door. Daniel gently closes the door as they leave, but it swings open a crack, allowing me to catch one last glimmer of the two of them facing each other off in a garden filled with amber light, thanks to the setting sun. They’re nothing more than silhouettes against the low sun, prepared to battle. 

_Please let that have been enough to fix them,_ I pray under my breath.

Now, where are those snacks Shaggy mentioned?

**_Velma, 1995:_ **

First thing Tuesday morning, following the schedule that Daphne had drafted up, I made myself comfortable in Daphne’s car. Fred’s van had been sent away for cleaning after we went to City Hall -and it smelled of farts, anyway – so Daphne had volunteered her car to use as a lookout spot.

The plan was that we’d each take turns on a shift-based system to watch out for any suspicious activity in our free periods. I was up first as I had a double free on Tuesdays in the morning, although Daphne was going to join me in during the second period as she had a library first period then a free second.

I let my thoughts wander; it’s not like I’m going to get any work done while keeping a lookout.

_“So, what information have we got now?” I asked the rest of the gang, “Fred, do_ you _want to start?”_

_Fred was practically bouncing in his seat from the anticipation of sharing what he’d learned, and although the thought of tormenting him by forcing him to wait was tempting, I figured that he would only derail the conversation if he wasn’t allowed to go first._

_“Okay, so!” Fred clapped his hands together, materialising a whiteboard behind him, “I went to go talk to the headteacher, as you all know-,”_

_Fred pulled out a whiteboard pen from his pocket and did a crude drawing of the headteacher. It was barely recognisable as a human face, let alone that of the headteacher._

_“Where did he get the whiteboard from?” I asked Daphne, “And the pens for it?”_

_“I think they were in the store cupboard?” she replied in a hushed voice, uncertain in her answer._

_“Ahem,” Fred coughs loudly to regain our attention, “Anyway, as I said, the headteacher. He told me-,”_

To cut things short: the headteacher only started this year, so he has no idea about any of the school’s history, and even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to divulge it thanks to the school’s confidentiality statement. 

I had packed a flask of tea and some baby carrots specifically for this lookout job, so I pulled the flask out of my backpack to take a sip of it. It’s the one Daphne got for me as a late Christmas: English breakfast, she’d brought it back from her travels to Europe over the holidays.

It’s not bad. Could use some more sugar and milk, though.

_“How did you not realise the headteacher was new?” I asked, “You’d think you’d be able to tell, wouldn’t you?”_

_“Don’t blame him, Velma,” Daphne said, oblivious to the pain they seemed to be causing Fred, “Fred believed the Phys Ed teacher when Mr B. said that he had a twin who works in the school and wears a suit.”_

_Shaggy poked Fred, hiding a smile behind his other hand, “Did you really? That’s so cute!”_

_“Okay, well that was useless,” I remarked, head between my hands, “Shaggy, Scooby, please say you got something.”_

_“We did, actually!” Shaggy excitedly pulls out his notebook. It’s this higgledy-piggledy thing with pages falling out all over the place. The cover was barely hanging onto the rest of the notebook and the plastic spiral binding was broken and chewed up in areas. I could’ve sworn that there was a sandwich in between those pages, as well as a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which we’d been assigned in English._

_Scooby made quick work of picking up all the pages that spilt out from the notebook, creating a sticky, slobbery pile on the corner of the desk for Shaggy to pick up later._

_“Right, so from Mr Matthews we learned that the groundskeeper is called Carl Schmitt.” Shaggy read from his notes, “He lives alone as his wife divorced him and took custody of their only son, changed his surname to her maiden name and everything-,”_

_“Josh_ and _Carl?” Daphne wondered aloud, “Wow, those two should be friends, they basically have the same backstory.”_

_“Mm, yeah, it’s almost like God is running out of good ideas,” Fred joked._

_“Or, maybe, divorce is a fairly common phenomenon and also a better storytelling device than “oh no wife dead! :( so sad!”?” I replied, mostly to spite Fred, “Plus, maybe it’s got an interesting flair like their wives fell in love with each other and they decided to run away together, raising their children in a wonderful man-free environment.”_

_“Guys, Shaggy isn’t done talking yet,” Daphne pointed out, “Settle down and let him finish.”_

_Fred grumbled but obliged._

_“Schmitt doesn’t seem to have many interests or hobbies, or if he does, Mr Matthews doesn’t know about them.” Shaggy continued, “Mr Matthews seemed worried about him, though. Mr Matthews is the only friend Schmitt’s got, apparently, and Schmitt gets really, really sad when he’s drunk.”_

_“What do you mean?” Daphne asked._

_“Schmitt talks about his family like they’re-,” Shaggy starts._

_“Dead.” continued Scooby._

I was snapped out of my thoughts by the school bell ringing obnoxiously loudly. My stomach jumps a little at the thought of Daphne coming to join me. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but it had been doing that lately.

Daphne was such a good person, it’s weird how little I knew about her. I knew about her family, vaguely, but I’ve never met them or heard about what they do. I don’t know why she seemed to have no friends outside of Mystery Inc., or why the other students seemed to go out of their way to avoid her. The adults were nice enough to Daphne, it is their job after all, but I had never seen her talk to any other kids our age, except The Note.

_“Hey, is it my turn yet?” Daphne asked, smiling at me, “Can I speak now?”_

_“Sure.” I smiled back at her._

_Daphne got up from her chair and wiped down the whiteboard that Fred had brought with him. She borrowed one of the pens Fred had left scattered about the table and made rough notes as she talked._

_“Right, from the receptionist, I learned that the Gardening Club is the only club in operation on Tuesdays, aside from the swimming club but they’re off-campus so they don’t count, so it looks like we’ve exhausted our witness pool,” Daphne stated, “The receptionist also said that all of the school’s important documents about the school’s history were kept in the library, so I wasn’t able to find anything out about that, but Velma, you went to the library so that shouldn’t be an issue, right?”_

_“Ah, about that…”_

Someone tapping on the car window snapped my back into reality. It was Daphne, gesturing for me to let her in. She had a takeaway box from a café nearby, and it was still hot, judging by the slight wisp of steam coming off of it.

“Hi!” she said as she climbed into the seat next to me, “I brought these for us to share as the café is on my way down here, and I figured it’d get cold in here.”

“Thanks,” I replied, taking a chip from the box she held out for me.

“So, did you see anything interesting?” Daphne asked, taking a chip for herself and taking a sip of my tea.

“No, not really. Just some birds,” I said, “You find anything interesting in the library?”

“Nope. There were only really old newspapers, and it was mostly just stories about plays the school was putting on,” Daphne replied, “That and some kid named Eric Murray killing himself. You might want to finish this tea soon; it’s starting to cool down.”

“Hm.” I took a draught of the tea, finishing the last drops, “We’ve hit a bit of a roadblock, huh? Thanks for the tea, by the way. It’s really good.”

“That’s great! I’m really glad you like it, my mum recommended it and I thought you might-,” Daphne cut herself off mid-sentence, her eyes filling with what could have been fear, “Duck!”

Trusting her implicitly, I obeyed her.

“Why?” I asked in a whisper, our noses an inch apart from each other, “Did you see something?”

“Yeah, it was Schmitt,” she replied, her voice lowered. Cautiously, she peeped her head above the dashboard. Seeing that the coast was clear, she sat up, opened the car door and hopped out, “C’mon, let’s follow him!”

And so, after grabbing a handful of hot chips and stuffing them in my mouth – I didn’t have breakfast, okay? – I chased after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr Velma is keeping a lookout in the car park by the edge of the forest with the special ed classrooms in it. She's thinking back on the evidence the others gathered: Fred's info was useless. Shaggy and Scooby found out that the gatekeeper is called Carl Schmitt, he got divorced and his wife took custody of their only child, and he has no friends other than Mr Matthews. Daphne found out that no one other than the gardening club would see whoever is going into the forest on Tuesdays and that important documents are kept in the library.  
> Daphne brings Velma chips, which they share, they sit in Daphne's car and talk about the other info gathered (nothing happened on lookout, and a student named Eric Murray is mentioned (he's dead).  
> Daphne sees Schmitt approaching the forest, so the two of them decide to follow him.
> 
> And that's all folks! (of the chapter, I mean, not forever)  
> Thanks for reading so far :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suicide  
> Like the last chapter, there is a mention of suicide in Velma's half of the chapter, so I have left a plot summary at the end of the notes.  
> Stay safe everybody :),  
> \- MoonRenegade

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Daphne?” Velma re-enters the room with Alexi at her heels, “Ah, there you are!”

She’d caught me mid-snack, so I just waved at her.

“It’s getting kind of late-,” It was 4 in the afternoon, it could hardly be called late,- “and I promised your parents that I’ll get you home at a reasonable hour, so we should get going now,” Velma says, glancing at her phone for the time.

“Does Daphne have a curfew?” Alexi asks innocently, “I thought adults don’t have curfews.”

“They don’t: your Auntie Velma is just teasing. And I’m not that much younger-,” I pat Alexi on the head and move to stand up, only for the momentary dizziness and thunder in my ears to cause me to stumble.

I’m only out for a second or two - this happens often, but it gets worse when I don’t take my iron tablets like these past few days – but from Velma’s face you’d have thought I just died.

“Are you okay?” she asked frantically, “Do you need me to call you an ambulance?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I wave away her worries, “Just could you give me a hand?”

I rub the sides of my forehead a little to clear the last of the static and I start to immediately feel better. My hand feels a little wet, though, and when I look down I see that there is a small trickle of blood.

Not enough to cause a full-blown panic spiral, but enough to be a concern.

Alexi’s already on it, though, as she had gotten me a pink Hello Kitty band-aid from her room and was applying as I had noticed the blood.

“Well, will you look at that!” she says with a flourish, “All better.”

As she says those words, I see her face morph, like someone had melted her facial features and recreated them into another person’s face, one which I recognise instantly.

Maddy.

I freeze. She - Alexi had just -.

Rubbing my eyes, I find that Alexi had returned to her usual state. That- That cannot be.

No, I’m just tired. Alexi probably just heard the phrase from Velma, picked it up from there, and my tired brain just played a small word association game. That has to be it.

Anyway, my little collapsing session had proven Velma’s point, so we went to go find Alexi’s parents to say goodbye. They’re still in the kitchen, handing out pieces of cake to their guests. Velma takes two slices and puts them in a Tupperware box, explaining to the pair that we were going to be heading off now and would not be hanging around to eat cake.

“Leaving so early?” Shaggy asks, “Well, I better see you out then. Babes, can you hold down the fort for a bit while daddy shows them to the door?”

“That’s really not necessa-,” Velma starts.

“Yup!” Alexi interjects excitedly, “Can I use the tall stool?”

“Sure poppet,” Fred replies, going to go get the stool and tapping it after plopping it down next to the counter, “Hop on kiddo.”

Shaggy is by the door, holding the door for us expectantly, “After you.”

We say our final goodbyes to Alexi, who was already taking sneaky nibbles from the cake, and Fred, who had yet to catch her doing so.

“What happened to your forehead?” Shaggy asks as we make our way to the door, “Was Alexi playing doctor again?”

“Something like that,” I replied. There wasn’t much point in going into it with him anyway, he’d only worry more.

“Well, it was nice seeing you -both of you-,” Shaggy says when we get to the door, “Sorry we couldn’t quite catch up as much as we could’ve.”

“That’s alright,” Velma utters, “And anyway, aren’t you guys going to come to visit your parents in Crystal Cove for Christmas soon anyway? We could maybe grab some coffee or something then.”

“That sounds great!” Shaggy replies, “Text me, we should arrange that sometime soon.”

“Cool,” Velma glances at her phone again, “Right, we should be off before we get stuck in traffic, so…”

“I should head back inside to help them with the cake, so bye, it was lovely seeing the two of you again,” Shaggy starts closing the door, “Bye!”

Velma and I wave for a couple of seconds until the door is fully closed, then turn on our heels and start heading towards the beat-up old car.

“What was the whole collapsing thing about?” Velma asks as we clip in our seatbelts, “You said it’s fine, but I can’t help but worry about you.”

“Oh, I’m just a little anaemic.” I explain, “It’s usually not an issue, but I haven’t been taking my pills recently because they’re in my wash bag at my parent’s place and I’ve been sleeping at your place more often than not.”

“Do you want to pack a sleeping-over bag that you can leave at my place while you’re here?” she asks, “The last thing I want is for you to hurt yourself again.”

“Velma, I’m okay. It’s just a little scratch.” I say as reassuringly as possible. Her hand, which was resting on the gear shifter, trembled a little. I place my hand on top of hers, “If it makes you feel better, though, I will make one.”

“Thank you.”

There is a slight pause as Velma eases the car out of the parking spot and onto the road. This street is such a sleepy, peaceful street in the middle of suburbia. Children had arrived home from school about an hour and a half ago, so many of them were playing in their front yards. Dogs barked playfully at passing joggers, but not loud enough to disturb the neighbours.

“I know we agreed that we weren’t going to date again-,” I start.

Velma inhales sharply.

“-but it’s kind of weird how we’ve both been talking like we are in one.” I continue.

“Oh.”

“Like, the thing you said about “our neighbours”, and just now with the staying-over bag.” I say, “Both times we’ve been talking like we _are_ dating.”

“Sorry about that,” Velma replies, not looking at me.

“No, no, don’t apologise,” _Why am I like this??_ “It’s just kind of funny.”

“Well, like you said, not dating is the responsible thing to do.” Her voice trembles a little as she says this.

“Yeah.”

_If only-._

_**Velma, 1995:** _

It wasn’t dark in the forest, but it wasn’t exactly bright either. Beams of light shone through the leaves like arrows shot into the heart of the forest. We were only able to keep up with Schmitt because he would occasionally pass through these patches of light, but we frequently lost sight of him. It was sheer luck that we were able to keep up with him at all.

Schmitt was carrying something in his hand, it hung loosely by his side, but he gripped it tightly when Daphne accidentally snapped a twig underneath her foot.

As Schmitt turned around to investigate the sound, I ducked into the undergrowth, pulling Daphne in after me.

“Hey! What’s the big idea-,” she hissed at me.

I hurriedly clasped my hand over her mouth, desperate to muffle any sound. I had a really, really bad feeling about this.

“Who’s there?” he called out, his voice filled with panic, “Come out, whoever you are!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a curious rabbit sniffing around us. Rabbits aren’t native to California -obviously- so I knew it must’ve been one of the school’s pet rabbits that had escaped. There’s no way a wild rabbit, native or not, would be willing to get this close to humans.

“Psst, psst, come over here…” I whispered to the rabbit, “It’s okay I won’t hurt you.”

Remembering that I still had my backpack on me, I shifted slightly so that I could grab one of the baby carrots from inside of it.

“Who’s there?” Schmitt called out again.

I let the rabbit have a small nibble of the rabbit, then rolled it away from me and towards Schmitt. Like clockwork, the rabbit followed the carrot, right into Schmitt’s line of sight.

There was a slight pause, in which I can only assume Schmitt stared at the rabbit with bewilderment.

“Oh, it’s you, Stonecrop.” Schmitt said eventually, scooping up the squirming rabbit with one arm, “Come here, I’ll take you back to your hutch in a little bit. How do you keep managing to escape, young man? And where did you get that carrot from? Have students been littering again?”

Schmitt continued to talk to the rabbit, Stonecrop apparently, as he disappeared down the path.

Daphne and I shared a breath of relief.

“I’m sorry-,” Daphne started.

“There’s no time for apologies,” I said, “And anyway you didn’t do anything wrong, it was just an accident.”

It was only after the imminent threat was removed did I realise how close Daphne and I were (physically, I mean, I was well aware of our friendship.). She was lying basically on top of me from when I had pulled her down into the undergrowth, and I could feel her chest move and the air brush against my cheeks every time she took a breath. Like the time we had hidden in the closet in Melissa’s school, and behind the chairs on my first day here, either one of us could lean forwards and kiss the other. The distance was insignificantly tiny.

“We should-,” Daphne said, stopping herself.

“We should what?” I asked, hoping, praying, that she was thinking the same thing as I was.

“We- … we should keep following him.”

My heart sank, “Yeah.”

Maybe Daphne was straight after all.

She helped me up, and we kept following Schmitt best we could. We had lost sight of him, so it would’ve been fairly difficult had it not been for Stonecrop the rabbit. As he had been munching on the carrot I had given him, he had left tiny crumbs of sorts, which we followed to the Special Ed building.

The Special Ed building was a two-storey building with four classrooms on each floor. To get to the second floor, you had to climb a short flight of metal steps on the side of the building, which let you onto the balcony-esque structure gave you access to the second-floor classrooms. Schmitt had let himself into one of the second-floor classrooms. He’d turned the light on and closing the door behind him, presumably to keep Stonecrop from escaping again, but we could still hear him talking to the rabbit through one of the open windows.

As quietly as we could, we snuck towards the classroom in question. Through the window, I saw Schmitt lay down what he had been carrying – it was a bouquet of pink, white, and blue flowers – on top of the pile of newspapers in the corner while Stonecrop hopped about the room.

Daphne must’ve seen something while I was watching Schmitt as she pulled me around the corner of the platform. It was this tiny space, barely large enough for the both of us, but I was glad she did so as I heard a voice call out from on the platform, “Carl? Are you in there?”

_I know that voice_ , I thought to myself, _I don’t know where from, but I know her._

Judging from Daphne’s face, so does she. She, however, knew where we’d heard her before, “The scream.”

She whispered it so quietly I’d never have been able to hear her had we not been standing so close.

I heard Carl open the door, “Hi, sweetie-,”

“Don’t call me that.” the woman snapped back, “Are those for him?”

Does she mean the flowers? If so, who’s “him”? The rabbit, maybe?

“What are you doing here?” Schmitt asked, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I could ask the same of you.” the woman said coldly, “I signed in at the front desk, look I even have a visitor’s badge to prove it, and your name wasn’t in the book. You don’t work on Tuesdays, so _you_ have no right to be here. I could get you fired for that you know.”

“I had to come here. I promised him.” Schmitt said, “I thought he’d like the flowers.”

“It wasn’t murder, and you know it.” the woman said, “You need to get over it: move on. I did.”

“Did you even know him at all?” Schmitt snapped back, “There’s no way he’d kill himself. He was such a happy young boy-,”

“He was being bullied, Carl,” the woman stated, “He was trans, he was an easy target. He was probably depressed and stressed about exams on top of all of that, it was practically inevitable Just give up already.”

“Don’t you care?” Schmitt asked as the woman opened the door to leave. By the slightly muffled nature of his voice, I’m guessing that he had his face buried in his hands, “Don’t you care at all?”

There was a slight pause, and I saw the woman’s hand grip the doorhandle tighter, “It’s been six years, Carl, I had to move on. Life continues, you know, whether or not you’re ready for it to.”

And with that, she left.

While Carl was still crying in the classroom, Daphne clasped my hand and dragged me back down the stairs.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“We have to find her, she was the one who screamed,” Daphne replied, glancing around for any trace of the woman.

“Do you even remember what she looked like?” I asked her.

I watch as the realisation kicked in, deflating Daphne’s overblown fantasy.

“Well, she said she signed in at the front desk, we could at least find out her name from there,” I suggested.

“Perfect!” Daphne smiled, “Let’s go, then!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot summary:  
> Velma and Daphne follow Schmitt through the forest to the Special Ed building. On the way there, they are nearly found out when Daphne accidentally steps on a twig, but Velma coaxes one of the school's pet rabbits (it was called Stonecrop and it had escaped again) with a baby carrot into running towards Schmitt, causing him to think it was the rabbit that caused the sound. Schmitt takes the rabbit with him, the girls almost but not quite kiss, then continue to follow him.  
> At the Special Ed building, the girls overhear a conversation between Schmitt and a woman (who they believe was the one who screamed on Velma's first day at the school) in which they discuss the death of a third mysterious person (which Schmitt left flowers for in the classroom). The woman leaves, and the girls decide to head to the front desk to try to find out her name as she had mentioned signing in there. 
> 
> I know technically the book Stonecrop the rabbit appears in (Tales from Watership Down) was published in 1996, a year after the time the story takes place, but it was such a perfect name I'm hop-ing (hehe) that it won't break the suspension of disbelief too much. 
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	47. Chapter 47

_**Daphne, now:** _

As we make our way down the freeway, it starts to get dark. I don’t mean New York dark, where there’s a streetlight at every corner, I mean an almost tangible, blanketing darkness. Other than a minivan full of kids and their exhausted teachers, we were the only ones on the road. It might as well have been 4 am and not 4 pm for all I know. There are lights along the roads, but as I stare out the window, I can’t see anything beyond an impenetrable line of trees.

“There isn’t actually a forest there, you know,” Velma says sadly, “It all got developed into agricultural lands, but to keep folks from complaining about the deforestation they left a small line of trees along the road to trick people into thinking there’s a forest.”

“That sucks,” I reply, “I really liked the forests.”

What’s that smell? It’s kind of sweet, like pancakes, maybe?

“I know, right? I suppose it’s better this way, though,” Velma noted out loud, “Kids used to get lost in there all the time.”

Maybe there’s an IHOP nearby? Ooh, we should probably stop by, we didn’t exactly eat lunch, just snacks and light alcohol.

“Shaggy and Fred “got lost” constantly,” I say sarcastically, reaching into my backpack in a futile attempt to find snacks.

“Ha! Yeah.”

Something catches my eye in the headlights, but it’s gone before my brain has a chance to identify it.

“Didn’t they break up, though?” I ask, “I could’ve sworn they did.”

“Kind of. They were pretty much on and off for the entirety of high school, but they broke up during senior year,” Velma replies, “They refused to talk to each other, and by proxy, me too.”

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a slight pause before she turns to me and flashes me a smile, “Don’t be, it wasn’t your fault. You just found some more popular friends, I can’t blame you-,”

As a streetlight passes overhead, I realise exactly the thing in the headlights was, “Smoke! Velma, look, we have to pull over-!”

“Sh*tty, f*cking, _I’m not going to die today_ ,” Velma’s hands grip the steering wheel as she swears through gritted teeth, navigating through her panic.

She pulls into the hard shoulder as quickly as she can, she turns on her sidelights and her hazard lights, grabs her bag and scrambles out of the car. I do the same, glancing around to see if I can see any other cars approaching.

As she, presumably, calls AA, I take a few cautious steps away from the car. Frankly, I don’t drive. It’s impossible to do so in New York, so I have no knowledge of car reparation, and by the look on Velma’s face, neither does she. Of my very limited knowledge, I know that car plus smoke equals a dramatic explosion, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

“Hi!” Velma says into her phone, trying her best to keep her voice level, “My car- I’m driving home and my car, it started billowing smoke.”

I approach her, and she puts the phone on speakerphone so I can hear the person on the other end of the line too, “Right, okay, well, where are you? Are you and the car safely out of the way of traffic?”

Velma tells the person on the phone all of the usual information: our location, what’s wrong with the car, whether or not the engine could still run, that kind of thing.

“It sounds like you guys might have a coolant leak, it’s nothing to worry about, but I’ll send someone out, just in case, to fix it.”

“Thank you!” Velma is almost crying from relief.

“Do y’all have some warm clothes? I’m going to need at least one of you to keep a watch out for the repair team headed your way.”

“Yes, we do, we’ll be okay,” I reassure the person on the other line, as well as Velma.

The person does what I assume is the usual wrap-up procedure of a call, telling us the estimated time of arrival (twenty to twenty-five minutes), reminding us to keep our hazard lights on, stay clear of oncoming traffic, that kind of thing. After one final goodbye, they hang up.

Exhausted, Velma sits down with her back to the car. Taking her prerogative, I sit down next to her.

“Thanks,” Velma says, “Y’know, for noticing the smoke and being here for me.”

“No problem.”

She takes my hand into hers, intertwining her fingers between mine, and lets her head fall on my shoulder.

It’s nice to just take a deep breath after that, frankly traumatic, experience. It’s cold enough for me to see Velma’s and my breath in the air, and I’m reminded of an old children’s book. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I had bought it for one of my co-worker’s children. It had a line, something like “it’s dragon season” to describe this exact phenomenon, and for some reason, it had stuck with my ever since.

“Can I … tell you something?” Velma’s voice trembles.

“Sure.” I hesitantly reply. Her tone implies that whatever she is going to ask is a fairly heavy topic.

“As much as I love Alexi, don’t get me wrong: she’s adorable and so sweet and kind, but…” she hangs back, as though she’s still debating it in her head. “Every time I see her, I want to cry.”

“Oh?”

“… yeah.” She’s not exactly hesitating, so much as weighing each word before she says them, “She reminds me so much of… _her_.”

She doesn’t need to elaborate for me to immediately know who she’s talking about. Thank goodness she wasn’t driving as we were having this conversation: her eyes are starting to welling with tears.

“Thank god,” I utter, placing a hand on my chest as I exhale, “I thought I was the only one that saw it.”

“I know, right?” Velma replies, her tone returning to a slightly more light-hearted one out of relief, “I don’t know where she picked up these little phrases from, but they’re all things you-know-who used to say.”

“What does your Mum think of Alexi?” I ask smiling, “Does she also see the resemblance in personality?”

“They never met,” Velma says, giving me a bit of a confused look, “Anyway-,”

Velma stands up, extending her arm out to me, “Shall we do a little stargazing to pass the time?”

“Sure.”

_**Velma, 1995:** _

Tuesday mornings were not a particularly busy time for the front desk, so Daphne took the task of distracting the receptionists while I flicked through the guestbook.

“So Deborah-,” Daphne started, inspecting her nails as she talked.

“Diane,” the receptionist talking to her corrected, “My name is Diane.”

The guestbook was a hefty hardback book the size of the old Bible in the library with old and yellowed pages. As usual, it sat on the receptionists' counter. Out of curiosity, I glanced at the first page to see when the first entry had been inscribed.

“Yeah, that, so,” Daphne replies dismissively before changing her voice into her gossipy voice, “Oh, my god, is that a new ring I see on your finger there?”

The earliest entry, as far as I could tell anyway as some of the first pages had been torn out, had been from before the first world war; someone by the name of Mrs Bertha Moore who had come to see the headmaster about her son’s “shenanigans”.

Diane blushed, averting her eyes away from Daphne, “Well,…”

She glanced to her co-worker, a tall, thin man with a pair of round, thick glasses, and a mop of curly brown hair. He smiled at her lovingly, before realising, startled, that Daphne was also looking at him.

“Oh!” Peter exclaimed, “Yes, I asked Diane to marry me last week.”

With a quick jerk of my head, I brought my attention back to the matter at hand: finding out the name of the woman who was talking to Schmitt.

“The wedding is next March,” Diane gleamed, grasping Peter by the arm, and leaning in closer to him, “I cannot wait.”

There were three entries for today: Mary Powell, Elliot Murray, and Elizabeth Edwards. None of them had signed out yet, so it was safe to assume that they had not left just yet.

Mary Powell had written their name in the most swirly, over-the-top that took up three lines of space instead of the usual one, and I could just barely read it. Thankfully, the other two were written in a much more reasonable block lettering for Elliot and semi-cursive for Elizabeth.

As well as noting down their names, I scratched my brain attempting to remember a course I had taken on analysing handwriting. Powell seemed to be a very extroverted and bold person with a large personality, potentially one with an inflated ego and attention-seeking tendencies.

Murray, on the other hand, seemed to be more introverted, as the letters were fairly small. They didn’t seem to be hiding anything, but the careful attention played to the letters could have been indicating that Murray went out of their way to do so.

Edwards also seemed to be rather introverted, but unlike Murray, didn’t seem to pay particularly close attention to their letters as the tittle (the dot on the “i”) was off-centre and the last few letters were smudged, as though they were in a rush.

“Hey, what are you doing, kiddo?” Peter asked, sucking me out of my train of thought, “Are you supposed to be doing that?”

“Um,…” I started to panic a little: I had been so lost in my thoughts it was jarring to have to come up with an excuse on the spot, “I… was looking for my … Mum’s name.”

Trying my best to hide it from view, I slid my notebook into my backpack.

“Oh?” Peter asked, picking up a calendar from his desk, “Does she have an appointment?”

“No,..." I started, my mind pulling up a blank.

Daphne, bless her, tried her best to cover for me, "Velma was feeling ill, so her mum is going to pick her up."

"Yep!" I chirped in, "She wasn't in the guestbook, though, so I'll go wait for her outside."

"Kiddo, if you're not feeling well you should wait in here," Peter said in a concerned voice, pulling out a blanket from under the counter, "It's freezing out there."

"No, no, it's okay, I can see her pulling up now," I pretended to peer through the window, "I should go..."

"Come on, I'll see you off," Daphne said, offering her hand to me.

Waving to the receptionists, the two of us stepped outside, the cold air buffeting us as we do so. For some reason, I was expecting something to be out here, but -of course- there wasn’t. Daphne leads us around the corner to a bench so the receptionists can’t see us. I sat down, placing m backpack down at my feet.

“So, what now?” Daphne asked, “What did you find out?”

When I reached for my notebook, I realised that Daphne was still holding my hand. Blushing, she let go. She played nervously with her hands, eyes averted, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I paused, unsure if I should continue as though nothing happened, but I can’t think of what else to do, “Anyway, three people signed in today: Mary Powell, Elliot Murray, and Elizabeth Edwards.”

“Well, we can rule out Elliot Murray,” Daphne said, leaning over to look at my notebook, “We’re looking for a woman, after all.”

“Right, yes,” I crossed the name off of my list, “Okay, so Elizabeth Edwards didn’t write down a Reason for Visit-,”

“Suspicious,” Daphne comments.

“- yeah, but Mary Powell did: she’s here for a job interview,” I continued, “I got interrupted so I couldn’t find out what position it was for.”

“I could ask the receptionists at some point,” Daphne offered, “Deborah and I are _great_ friends.”

I couldn’t tell if she’s joking or not.

“Thanks.” I glanced around, “Do you want to go back to your car or the receptionists? We could just say I was wrong or something.”

Something over Daphne’s shoulder caught my eye: emerging from the line of trees leading to the Special Ed building was a figure holding a squirming rabbit.

Schmitt.

He was starting to make his way towards us, or rather the front desk, so we needed to hide. Ideally quickly.

“C’mon, we need to hide,” I insisted, grasping Daphne’s hand once again. I led the two of us behind one of the teachers’ cars, ducking behind it so that we were concealed from view.

Through the car window, we watched as Schmitt entered the building, handed the rabbit to the receptionists, talked to them for a moment, then left.

He wandered away from the building, leaving the premises entirely, presumably heading home.

“So…,” Daphne glanced back at the building, “Back to the receptionists?”

“Yeah. You can ask about Powell, and the guests have to go back through the front desk to sign out, so I can watch out for them to pass by.” I told her.

“Cool, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to let you guys know in advance: after chapter 50, I'm taking a break so I can re-edit all of the chapters (if I leave it any longer, I won't do it at all), so Valentine's Day's chapter will be the last one for a bit. I'll be coming back (don't worry!) but if you see some drastic changes (especially in the first few chapters), don't be surprised. :)
> 
> I don't know how long it'll take, but I appreciate your consideration.
> 
> Thank you,  
> -MoonRenegade


	48. Chapter 48

_**Daphne, now:** _

We clamber onto the roof of the car so we can be sure to be out of the traffic and lie down on the cold metal. Velma keeps a blanket in the car, so she pulled that out for us to lie under as we watched the night sky above us.

“Do you still know all the constellations?” I ask her, thinking back to all the nights we had spent like this in our youth.

“Most of them yeah,” she tears her eyes away from the glimmering lights to glance at me, “Do you remember the ones I taught you?”

“Some. Like Cassiopeia and her husband what’s-his-face.”

“Very eloquent of you.” Velma jokes, flicking my icy nose.

“It’s not like it’s my job or anything.” I reply sarcastically, adding more sincerely, “Tell me the story again: I’ve kind of forgotten it.”

This wasn’t exactly true, the memories of our nights spent together are treasured ones, but I had forgotten the details. And I kind of wanted to just stare at the sky, listening to Velma’s voice.

“Okay, so, Cassiopeia was this queen-,” Velma starts.

“Girl power,” I commented, raising my fist to the sky.

“Hah, yeah,” Velma chuckles, “Basically, she boasted that she was prettier than the Nereids, which made Poseidon-,”

“The what sorry?” I know I’m interrupting a lot, but I can’t help it.

“Nereids. They’re sea nymphs,” Velma tells me, “And Poseidon was the god of the sea.”

“Oh, okay, cool,” I stare up at the sky again, letting Velma’s words paint a narrative in the dark stage above.

Velma tells me about how Poseidon got pissed off at Cassiopeia’s boast after the nymphs complained to him, and as he was married to one of these nymphs he decided to sent one of his sea monsters, Cetus, to ravage Cassiopeia’s kingdom. When Cassiopeia consulted an oracle for help, she was told to sacrifice her daughter, Princess Andromeda, to the monster. They did so, rather reluctantly, and tied to a rock out at sea.

“Well, that sucks,” I commented, “Your parents just leaving you to die.”

“I know, right?” Velma jokes, “Greek Gods are sh*tty parents all around. Anyway, Perseus, passing by on Pegasus, the Flying Horse, noticed her plight and rescued her.”

“Oh, thank goodness, a white knight riding to the rescue,” I say sarcastically, “Let me guess, they get married and it’s happily ever after?”

“…,” Velma says more than enough with her silence, “One of her former suitors, Phineus, tried to stop the wedding, claiming to be the only one to have the right to marry her.”

“Of course he does.”

“I’m pretty sure Perseus isn’t white, though.” Velma notes out loud, “The Disney version is, but in traditional mythology, he would’ve been Greek.”

“True, but that doesn’t negate the point that a man came along to fix all of her problems instead of allowing Andromeda to rescue herself,” I point out, “Sorry, you can continue.”

“The Gods were pleased, apparently, so Poseidon placed Cassiopeia and Cepheus, her husband, in the sky,” Velma continues, “As punishment for her vanity, Cassiopeia was bound to a chair and condemned to spend half of the year upside down.”

“Is that why her constellation looks like a “w”?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

That one word drifts out into the void, the memory of it echoing in my mind. We don’t talk after that, simply letting the sort of silence of the night fill in the space left by our lack of conversation.

It wasn’t awkward, though. Neither of us felt the need to coat over the absence with chatter, so we just… lie there.

From under the blanket, I notice Velma fidgeting. A moment later, I feel her hand slip into mine.

“My hands are cold,” she smiles.

Chuckling, I put one arm around her shoulders, “Come here.”

Velma cuddles into my side like a baby koala snuggling their mother, and I let my head rest against the top of hers. I want to stay here forever. I don’t want the car repairs people to get here. I just want to stare at the sky and snuggle with Velma forever.

Who gives a damn about work anyway? Capitalism is an exploitative system for the proletariat, and if my choice were between going back to work and staying here with Velma at this moment, of course, I’d pick…

Would I, though?

Let’s be real, you can’t live off of love. I’ve seen the average footfall Velma’s bakery it gets, it barely manages to pay for its expenses, I doubt it could support an extra person, even if I did help out full-time.

_You could work remotely,_ a small voice said in my head, _or you could find another job here._

I feel Velma idly playing with my feet under the blanket, gently kicking them, nudging them a little, that sort of thing.

“What’s that about?” I ask her.

“I don’t know, I just felt like it,” Velma glances up at me mischievously, “Do you remember our midnight picnics?”

“F*ck yeah, I do,” I don’t know why we’re whispering, but it feels right, “Looking back, I’m surprised we didn’t get hurt or killed at all.”

“We were just really lucky, I suppose,” Velma says simply.

“Or maybe the universe was apologising for everyone else’s behaviour.”

There’s a twang of bitterness in my voice that I hadn’t intended to be there, one that I hadn’t noticed until the words were out of my mouth.

“Hm, maybe,” Velma shifts so she can look at me directly, “Do you want to go stargazing again? The loft space in my apartment has a sort of skylight so we don’t have to worry about getting cold as much.”

“Does that mean we don’t get to cuddle?” I joke, “Because if so, of course not.”

Velma pauses, pulls herself away from me and sits up, “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I prop my self up on my elbows to keep watching her.

“You make a big show and dance of being like, “we’re not dating, it’s not the responsible thing to do”,” she puts on a silly voice in her impersonation of me, “but then you say things like the cuddling thing, and it’s just like- what do you want, Daphne?”

Her voice is desperate, it’s begging for an answer I don’t have.

“I-,” I reach out my hand to touch her shoulder, but she brushes me off.

“Are we dating, are we not?” Velma continues, tears starting to streak down her face, “Please don’t just break my heart again.”

She hadn’t cried, not properly anyway, when we were talking about Alexi, but now she’s not holding back in the slightest. The last thing she wants is for me to comfort her,… right?

I never find out the answer, anyway, as I see the lights of the repair service quickly approaching us.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“-feel really sorry for him,” Diane said to her fiancé as we entered, “He’s so alone after …y’know.”

“Mm,” Peter replied, picking up Stonecrop and pulling the piece of paper out of the rabbit’s mouth, “I’m going to go return this little fellow to the hutches, will you be alright here?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine, you worry too much Peter,” Diane laughed, “And anyway, you girls can protect me while you’re here, can’t you?”

Daphne nodded enthusiastically, dropping down into a karate pose, “I’ll protect your honour with my life, Diane.”

“Oh, goodness,” Diane exclaimed, clutching a hand to her chest, “See, Peter? I’ll be fine.”

Peter smiled, turned on his heel, and walked further into the school.

“Now, I’m assuming your mother wasn’t there?” Diane said, turning to me, “If you want, I can ring her again?”

“No, no, it’s alright,” I replied, panicking slightly, “I’m starting to feel a little better anyway, so can I just sit down for a bit until the bell goes?”

“What do you want me to do if your mother gets here, then?” Diane asked, a suspicious look falling across her face.

“I don’t think she’s coming,” Daphne tells her in a sympathetic voice, “You see, Diane, her mother was called an hour ago, they only live a twenty-minute walk away from here and her workplace is even closer, so if she was coming to pick her up, she should’ve gotten here a while ago. Velma was just hoping her mother would show up anyway.”

“Oh, dearie,” Diane stepped around from the desk to hug me, “It’s okay, my mother was the same, I understand. If you ever need to talk to anyone, I’m right here, okay?”

Nodding, I stepped a little away from her, “Can I wait until the bell goes? Just in case?”

I wasn’t very good at acting, and I definitely laid it on too thick, but I think Diane bought it anyway. Maybe Diane saw something in me that reminded her of a younger version of herself? I don’t know.

“Of course, darling,” Diane went back around to her desk, and she and Daphne started talking in hushed voices.

I hope to God Daphne is asking about Mary Powell, and not spreading more salacious rumours about me, even if it was to bail me out of trouble. Why am I the one doing all the acting anyway?? Daphne is the drama-focused one out of the two of us.

Glancing around the front desk, I noticed a few fliers for this semester’s school play: Romeo and Juliet. Both Daphne and Fred had auditioned for a part in the play – Daphne because she wanted to, and Fred simply because Daphne was doing it. Shaggy, Scooby, and I had waited for them on the green bit outside the music classrooms as had become our custom.

It was pretty boring to sit there and wait for our person to appear. There wasn’t much time left, either, as the bell was about to go in about ten minutes, and I wasn’t going to explain Mum about why I had to cut class to sit in the reception. Mystery Inc. was already on thin ice as Shaggy had been banned from taking part, even though he continued to do so against his mother’s wishes, so I wasn’t going to put another maternal ban on top of that.

Thankfully, I could hear someone approaching, my ears pricking up and my posture fixed to get a better look at the person who was approaching.

A small, rather plump woman stepped through the door with the head of drama, mid-conversation with him, “-lovely. I hope to be hearing from you very soon.”

“Well, I’d love for you to be teaching in one of our classrooms very soon. I’ll put in a good word for you,” Mr Cowen replied, shaking her hand, “Don’t forget to sign out of the guestbook as you leave, Miss Powell.”

“Of course,” Miss Powell replies, hiking up the sleeves of her blue velvet jumper and signing her name with a flourish. She capped the pen with her pinkies out, as though she was gently pressing two china cups together. She straightened her patchwork vest, put on her coat, waved goodbye to Mr Cowen and left.

“I hope to see you again soon!” Mr Cowen called out to her as she disappeared.

Miss Powell clearly wasn’t the person we were looking for. For starters, she was significantly shorter than the woman we had seen, and she was presumably accompanied everywhere she went while in the school so there was no way she could’ve gone to the Special Ed building without someone noticing. It also would be odd to pretend to go to a job interview if what you wanted to do was trespass. 

Which means the next person to leave would likely be the person we were looking for: the elusive Elizabeth Edwards who didn’t write a purpose for visit and smudged her signature due to her rush.

As soon as Miss Powell was out of eyesight, Mr Cowen deflated like a week-old helium balloon, “Diane, please say that was the last interviewee? I don’t think I can survive another one.”

Diane paused before answering, “There’s one last one waiting in one of the meeting room for you.”

Mr Cowen slumped onto the desk, his arms draped dramatically over the edge of the desk as his forehead rested on the surface of the desk.

“Here,” Diane held out a small piece of card, “It’s in meeting room three.”

Groaning, Mr Cowen took the card, “Why did I ever agree to do this?”

“I think you’ll like this one,” Diane said, not glancing up from the sheets of paper in front of her, “He said his name was Gregory, and if I wasn’t engaged myself, I’d snap himself right up.”

“Gregory’s here?” Mr Cowen bolted up, “Diane, darling, why didn’t you tell me?”

He rushed out of the room without giving Diane the chance to answer. Laughing to herself, Diane staples some pieces of paper together.

“Diane, what was all that about?” Daphne asked, “Who’s Gregory?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you,” Diane replied, hiding a small smile, “Mr Cowen and his _best_ _friend_ , Gregory, live together if you catch my drift.”

“But Mr Cowen is, like, forty,” Daphne remarks, “Why does he need a roommate?”

“Exactly,” Diane said simply, leaving Daphne looking bewildered.

The person succeeding Miss Powell is another woman, a tall thin woman flanked by Daniel Olsson and the headteacher.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Eastwood, I promise this won’t happen again,” the woman says, “Isn’t that right, Daniel?”

Huffily, Daniel turned away from the woman.

Upon closer inspection, I don’t think this woman is Daniel’s mother. She was acting like she was, yet Daniel’s reaction, and the fact that he’s white when this woman was not. I don’t know much about Daniel, but I do know that he isn’t adopted or from a “broken family”, so who is this woman? 

“Liza, that isn’t part of your job, don’t worry about that,” the headteacher sighed, “Daniel, I’ll be home later this afternoon and we’ll talk about this with your mother properly then, can you please just stay out of trouble until then?”

Daniel huffed but didn’t protest.

“Right then,” the headteacher straightened back up to talk to the woman, “I’m … thank you for doing this, Liza.”

“Just my job, sir,” the woman said, somewhat bitterly, “Goodbye, sir.”

“I’ll pay you overtime!” the headteacher called after the pair of them, sighed, and resigned himself back to the school.

It wasn’t her. 

She wasn’t the one we were looking for. Although the headteacher hadn’t called her the name she had signed in with, I assumed from the smudged ink on her right cuff that this woman was our elusive Elizabeth Edwards. There was no way she could’ve gone to the Special Ed building: she’d signed in a mere five minutes before we had checked the guestbook and had left ten minutes after that. If she had gone to pick up Daniel from the headteacher’s office, it would have been impossible for her to walk the five-minute trip it takes to get to the Special Ed building and back to make it here, not accounting for Mr Eastwood’s notoriously long lectures about misbehaviour.

So, who is our mysterious person? Where did they go??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooohhh, intrigue? Was the front desk a dead end after all? Will present-Daphne ever tell present-Velma how she really feels? Who knows!  
> Well, I do, because I wrote it and mapped out the main points of the story before I wrote it out, but anyway- How is everyone?
> 
> Also, I completely forgot to mention because of the whole "Trump supporters storming the Capitol" thing that happened during the same week, but three weeks ago marked exactly one year since starting this fic! (and to think I thought it's be done by last Christmas...)
> 
> Thank you for reading so far,  
> -MoonRenegade


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide
> 
> Once again, there will be a plot summary for Velma's half of the chapter in the end notes. :)

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Hi!” the mechanic steps out of the van, “I heard you guys have a coolant leak?”

Velma had already clambered off the car after the lights first appeared, so I was left sitting on the car’s roof on my own, blanket draped over my legs. I hop down as the mechanic approaches.

I wave hello to the woman but otherwise make no effort to talk to her.

“Yeah, we were driving home when Daphne here noticed white smoke coming from the car,” Velma tells the mechanic as they walk around to the front of the car, “It smelled like pancakes.”

“Mm, sounds around right for a coolant leak,” the mechanic says, taking a flashlight out of her toolkit and looking around under the car, “Has this happened before?”

“I don’t know,” Velma says, “This was my Mum’s old car, so it hasn’t been driven in …probably years?”

The mechanic nods knowingly, continuing to look around the car.

My mind starts to wander into a daydream, and I don’t bother even trying to rein it back in.

Gl _a_ ncing around, I notice that the highw _a_ y has turned into luscious, glowing green gra _s_ s. The sky above is miraculously sh _i_ fting into a cloud-speckled bright blue sky. It’s a meadow, _the_ meadow, the one I had seen w _h_ en Rex the dog had approached us, _so I_ step to _w_ ards it.

I haven’t been able to get the thought of that incident out of my mind. Where had that rock come from? Things _shouldn’t_ materialise out of a _hallucination_ , a daydream, a haze, whatever that was, and it was happening all over again.

I know I’m not just remembering the inci _d_ ent; this feels more fleshed out. I practically feel the grass cushioning my _steps_.

My arms start to feel really, really light, as _though_ gravity wasn’t affecting them anymore. My posture straightens, and the blanket slips from around my shoulders as my body starts to lift off _the_ ground _gently_.

You know those videos of astronauts in zero-g, where they weren’t flying, but rather floating? Or that scene in Into the Spiderverse when Miles isn’t _falling_ through the frame but rather _rising_?

It’s _like that_ , but a whole lot less aw _e_ some.

_And a hell_ of a lot _scarier._

“Velma!” I call out to her, I’m at least a head above her and the _mechanic now, “Velma, look up, please!”_

My voice sounds w _e_ ird and warped, as _though I’m not the one saying them_ , or as if I’m trying to scream underwater. Either they can’t hear me, or they’re not paying attention, but neither of them looks up _from the car’s engine._

In a desperate att _e_ mpt to stay on the ground, I reach out for the streetlamp as it passes by, but no matter how hard I clung to it, the upward force still manages _to yank me higher_ and higher into the sky.

The last thing I see before the _clouds obscure my vision is_ the blanket, crumpled and l _y_ ing on the ground. Deciding that I have no other chance, I resign myself to the invisible for pulling me upwards and stop struggling against it.

It’s not cold up here. It was a _bit damp as I passed through_ the clouds, but not in an unpleasant way. It’s a lot easier to breathe up here, too.

I thought oxygen got sparse at a certain point in the stratosphere, _but as I rise higher and higher_ , the air _only seems to_ become more saturated with oxygen.

_I hear from behind me a loud rumbling of_ something approaching, when I turn around I see an aeroplane approaching with an alarming speed. It’s a white plane with a blue underbelly and a red wavey stripe on the sides. “ _AMI Jet Charters” is blazoned across the aircraft_ body, as though a child had scrawled their name on their favourite toy. Somehow, I dodge out of its way just in time, scowling as the _toothpaste-reminiscent plane disappeared from view._

Just in case any more _planes were planning on trying to kill me, I glance around me. In the clouds, I see … creatures? They ranged in size, some were huge goliath creatures that carried large buckets of cloud matter, and some were tiny spider size, and they were chipping away at_ the clouds.

They weren’t particularly scary; _they waved back in a friendly manner when I waved at them, and they seemed to pose no threat to me._

Eventually, after a few _moments of floating, I burst through the top layer of clouds like a_ missile destined for the moon, only to emerge into Studio Ghibli-esque land on top of the clouds.

_The unseen force that had been pulling me upwards eases up, allowing me to gently fall onto the crayon-green grass on top of this cloudland._

_This is a completely different world from the one I had just ascended from._

_Birds that looked like stars fly up from the waist-high grass, temporarily filling the air around me with the sound of flapping. Butterflies with wings that look like they’ve been coloured in by an enthusiastic, but over-excited child, flutter around me. The sound of laughter seems to emanate from a spot a little ahead of me, so I pick myself up and start walking towards it._

_This land, curious as it is, is delightful. Even though it’s winter back down on in California, up here, it’s the height of summer. Beautiful creature straight from the textbooks in the library wander about peacefully, even though many of then are the predators and prey of each other, and a number of them are from opposite ends of the planet._

_I don’t have to walk far until the dirt and grass beneath my feet turn into a neat, winding brick path. It leads me through the meadow to a small cottage on the other end of the cloud._

_Sprawling gardens with rabbits and chickens and cats and dogs wandering about surround the cottage. The cottage is this adorable, two-storey brick structure that wouldn’t be out of place in a Beatrice Potter book. The cottage seems impossibly small, though, as though it wasn’t built with an adult in mind, and I have to stoop to look into one of the windows. Inside, I see a dining room, also unusually small, with a table set for a meal. Through an archway, I can see into part of the kitchen. Someone eerily familiar exits the kitchen with a steaming pot of something that smells absolutely divine and places it on the table._

_Something gives way under my foot, causing my forehead to knock into the glass, startling the person inside._

_As they look up at me, I feel the invisible force that had brought me up here start to pull on me again._

_“You’re not supposed to be here yet!” screams the person inside the cottage, the wind drowning out the rest of their words_ as I’m yeeted back to the ground.

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“So, what are we doing?” Daphne dumped her files onto the table, “Going over the facts again?”

“Pretty much,” I sighed.

We’d hit a dead end. It had been a week since we saw Schmitt go into the Special Ed building, and we had more questions than answers. Who was the woman Schmitt was talking to? Why was Schmitt even in the Special Ed building? What were the screams about?

“What do you want me to do?” Shaggy asked, “I haven’t really got that much to go through.”

“I don’t know, um, … make a list,-” I said, making up the task on the spot-, “… of everyone involved in this mystery. Don’t leave anyone out, regardless of how trivial they seem, they might be important.”

“In any order?” Scooby asked.

“Let’s go with… alphabetical?” I suggested with a shrug.

“Alright, I’m heading out for snacks, then,” Fred said, pulling his wallet out of his bag, “Do you guys need anything?”

“I’ll have dunkaroos and a yoo-hoo,” Shaggy raised his hand.

“What are you, ten?” Fred mocked playfully.

Shaggy stuck his tongue out at him in reply.

Thankfully the two had stopped arguing in those two weeks. It was a bit awkward, as though they were trying a little too hard to be friends, but as long as there wasn’t a shouting match every time they talked, Daphne and I had no complaints.

“Fruit snacks,” Scooby added, “And a Hi-C.”

“Right, okay, no Scooby snacks?” Fred asked.

“No, I stocked a bunch in the cupboard, we have enough for the rest of the century,” I replied, pulling my water bottle out of my backpack, “Could you refill this for me? And I’ll have a cosmic brownie, … please.”

“Can I just get some Sunny D?” Daphne said, glancing up from her textbook, “I’m not that hungry.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her, “You didn’t eat much at lunch either.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Daphne said dismissively. She stood up, “I’m going to go through the newspaper articles again, maybe we missed something.”

“Cool. Oh, and could you ask Mrs Robertson about Schmitt?” I instructed her, “She might know something, and you’re the best at getting information out of people.”

“Sure, see you later,” she waved and left the room, mumbling something under her breath.

I heard her heels clicking against the floorboards of the corridor as she headed towards the library, the regular sound fading out of earshot.

“Do you think Daphne’s mad at me?” I asked Shaggy as soon as the sound of her heels disappeared, chin in my hand, “She keeps doing that, the talking to herself thing.”

Shaggy and Scooby shared a glance as if they knew something I didn’t.

“Look, Velma,” Shaggy started, “I’m really not the person to ask about this. Freddie and Daphne are a lot closer than she and I are. And anyways, if anyone would know, it’d be you.”

“Anyway. No “s”,” I corrected him, “The last thing I want to do is talk to Fred, he and I don’t exactly get along.”

“Hm, I couldn’t tell,” Shaggy said sarcastically, “Why do you ask, though? The mumbling thing could just be her reminding herself of something.”

“I know, but it feels like she’s been avoiding me,” I confided in the two of them, “Promise you won’t tell anyone, but she’s switched seats with a couple of people, so we don’t sit next to each other in any of our classes anymore.”

“I didn’t know she had other friends,” Shaggy commented, “Last time I heard, she wasn’t exactly popular.”

“I know, right?” I added, “And there’s this thing, I don’t think she’d been eating properly, or at least not in school.”

“Maybe she just eats a lot at home?” Shaggy suggested.

“We do!” Scooby piped up.

“Yeah, I’m not too worried about your appetites, you two are going to eat us out of a club,” I replied, Scratching behind Scooby’s ears, “But I hope she’s alright.”

“Me too,” Shaggy said sympathetically, “Maybe you should talk to Freddie about this?”

“Maybe,” I thought to myself for a moment, “Why do you call him Freddie, anyway? No-one else does. What are you guys, dating?”

I had meant it jokingly, but from Shaggy’s lip-less smile, averted eyes and rising eyebrows, that wasn’t how he took it.

“Oh my god, you are!”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he begged, his voice desperate, “I haven’t even told my parents yet, and I don’t-,”

“No, no, it’s chill, I can keep a secret,” I held out my little finger, “Pinky promise.”

He paused before linking his little finger with mine, “Pinky promise.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, “Y’know, all the arguing and such?”

“Not really. We’re not exactly … together at the minute.”

“Ah,” I said thoughtfully.

"You don't think it's, like, gross?" Shaggy asked, his voice trembling slightly, "Or weird?"

"You're one of my best friends," I reassured him, "Imagining you having sex is weird and gross, never mind who it's with."

"Hah, yeah."

I glanced down at the list he was working on when something caught my eye: there were two entries in the “M” list: Elliot Murray, the third person who had checked in that day, and Eric Murray, the kid who killed himself.

“There’s no way…” I said, mostly to myself, as I picked up the list and stood up.

“What?” Scooby asked, glancing up at me.

“Elliot, Elliot can be a girl’s- a woman’s name!” I burst out, “And Schmitt’s wife changed her and her son’s surname to her maiden name.”

“Yeah, and?” Shaggy prompted.

“I need to go,” I said, grabbing my notebook and pencil case.

“Wait, go where?” Shaggy asked, “What about going over the facts again?”

“I think I’ve solved the mystery, but I need to double-check,” I told him as I rushed down the hall, “And tell Fred that if he eats my cosmic brownie while I’m gone, I’ll kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot summary: The crew are going over the facts of the case as they've hit a dead end. Fred goes to get snacks for everyone and Daphne goes to the library to look over the newspaper articles again, leaving Velma, Scooby, and Shaggy in the club room by themselves. The pair talk about Daphne as Velma suspects that Daphne is mad at her (Daphne had switched seats and seemed to e avoiding her), and Fred and Shaggy's relationship (spoiler alert, they've been dating, who knew, but they aren't now). Velma looks down at the list Shaggy had been writing of everyone involved in the case and sees a connecting between Elliot Murray and Eric Murray, suspecting them of being Schmitt's ex-wife and son respectively. She decided to go talk to the librarian to confirm her suspicions. 
> 
> Well, everyone, it's the penultimate chapter before I go on a break to edit the previous chapters. If you want to read all of the chapters before they corrected and tweaked (why anyone would, I don't know), I recommend you do so soon as they will be changing slightly in the near future. They won't be big changes, don't worry, but I'll be correcting some things, like calling Emily "Emilia" the first time she's mentioned and making sure things read a little more smoothly. 
> 
> Thank you for reading so far! :)  
> -MoonRenegade


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide
> 
> As with previous chapters, there are mentions of suicide in Velma's chapter so there is a plot summary in the endnotes.

_**Daphne, now:** _

“Daphne?” the voice is far, far away like I’ve got my head underwater and someone above the surface is calling out to me, “Daphne, are you okay?”

_It looks like I’m deep underwater. The surface is up, up, up there. After I had been yeeted back to the ground, I had plunged into this vast abyss of water. Under my feet is nothing but darkness and more water, and up above is a canopy of light breaking through the surface in patches._

_It’s not cold, just mildly unpleasant like I’m not supposed to be here. My legs gently kick back and force, lightly treading water even though I don’t seem to be going anywhere. My shoelaces, which had come undone in the scramble to get out of the car, weaved in and out of themselves like two dancing caterpillars on a leaf._

_My hair, which was wavy at best, billow around me, like I'm Udea, goddess of Vitality, and not... and not... whoever I am normally._

_The darkness didn’t seem scary. Admittedly, it seemed to be_ trying _to be scary, but it was like a toddler trying to scare an adult. They tend to giggle too early on and give the game away because they have no experience in mischief._

_Well, they do, but not in getting away with said mischief._

_I know a pair of twins like that, don’t I? Who…?_

_The water around me moves, a current swirling my hair around, reminding me that I’m underwater._

_It’s weird. I don’t feel wet, or like I’m underwater; I can breathe perfectly fine._

_Actually, I don't_ seem _to need to breathe at all. I do now that I think about it, but I don't think I was breathing before I thought about it-_

“Daphne?”

_There’s something there, just above the surface._ It’s t _he one that’s calling_ out for Daphne. 

Which is me. 

I’m Daphne.

And with that, my head bobbed up to the surface, rupturing my vision of the dark abyss and the canopy of light.

“Daphne, are you there?” a hand whipped past my eyes a few times, “Anyone home?”

The blanket is at my feet, still waiting for me in a crumpled pile in the same place that I had dropped it when I … when I…

What happened?

“Daphne?” Velma asks again, “Hello?”

Blinking a few times, I realise that both she and the mechanic are staring at me. The mechanic has a phone in her hand, the dial pad open and ready.

“Do you… do you want me to call someone?” the mechanic asks, holding up her phone, “Your car is fine, but if you need me to-?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Velma says, her eyes glued to me as she waves away the mechanic, “I’ll deal with this.”

Velma picks up the blanket from the floor and wraps it around my shoulders, “You must be cold, here.”

“Velma, I had the weirdest dream,” I grab her arms to get her to pay attention to what I’m saying rather than my immediate physical needs, “I flew into the sky, and there was this place in the clouds - _the clouds, Velma_!”

“Yeah, maybe don’t say that so loudly,” Velma plucks my hands off her arms, takes my elbow, and leads me away from the car and out of earshot of the mechanic, “The mechanic is on the verge of calling Crystal Cove’s Lunatic Asylum as it is.”

“But the asylum closed decades ago,” I say, still slightly dazed from … whatever just happened, “We explored it once because we thought it was cursed, remember? It was actually just-,”

“-A publicity stunt for the museum they were building there, I know. It was supposed to be a joke,” Velma stares at me, “Daphne are you okay? You just stared at that for, like, ten minutes.”

She gestures to the line of forests along the highway. I can’t shake the feeling that something, _something_ , is out there, watching us. I step forward, trying to catch a glimpse of it as Velma watches on with a mix of worry and confusion.

“Look, Daphne, I’m sorry,” Velma professes, “I know coming back here was hard for you, and I haven’t exactly made it easier. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dredge up the past, it’s just-,”

Something crunches underneath my foot.

A feather, bright white like a bolt of lightning.

It gleams like the moon in a cloudless sky even under the shadow of the trees. Picking it up, I watch in wonder as the mud from my shoes crumbles away from the feather, allowing for the pristine shimmer to emanate from it even more than it just had.

Twisting it between my fingers, I let the feather catch the orange light of the overhead streetlamps, “Birds that look like stars…”

“Right,” Velma is still staring at me, this time with a mix of disbelief and … maybe hope? “I’m going to go deal with the mechanic, could you…? We’ll talk about this later.”

With a final nod, Velma turns on her heel and walks towards the mechanic. Their voices, the mechanic’s filled with agitation and Velma’s filled with the calmness of a therapist, make their way to me, the actual words lost to the night.

“Who are you?” I whisper to the forest, not expecting a reply or anything of note at all. I just wanted to let the thought out before my head exploded out of curiosity.

Soft as a breeze, quiet enough for me to dismiss as simply the trees rustling, I hear, “A friend.”

A hand lands on my shoulder, startling me and causing me to jump.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Velma glances over my shoulder at something, her eyes filling with fear, but there’s nothing when I whip my head around to look at it.

“What did you just see?” I almost shout at her, “What was it? Who was it?”

She slips one of her shaking hands into mine, forcefully pulling me away from the trees, “C’mon, we should go.”

_**Velma, 1995:** _

“Daphne,” I managed through gasps of air after slamming the door open with my best acting skills, “Thank God I found you, we need to talk. Now.”

“Velma!” Daphne exclaimed, letting the papers fall through her fingers, “Are you alright? What happened to you?”

Mrs Robertson, equally startled, surveyed me for visible injuries, while another student briefly glanced up from their book to look at me.

“I just ran down the corridor,” I explained, dramatically trying to catch my breath, “I really need to work on my fitness, the clubroom is literally like two corridors away.”

Daphne did that half-tilted nod as she helped me into a seat, “What’s this emergency?”

Mrs Robertson seemed to determine that I was fine and so excused herself to get me a glass of water.

I glared at the student, an anxious freshman, and said with as much power I could muster, “Keep her distracted for as long as you can.”

The student, surprisingly resistant given the situation, remained in their seat but did at least place the book in their backpack.

“Please?” Daphne added with a smile.

Somehow, that was enough, and the student disappeared after Mrs Robertson.

“What’s the rush?” Daphne asked jokingly, “It’s not like you have a deadline on solving the mystery.”

“I know, right?” I commented sarcastically, “Something compelled me to run as if an omniscient overlord was controlling my every action and chronicling them in a piece of fiction.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Daphne replied, stroking my arm slightly, “You still haven’t told me why you’re _really_ here yet.”

“I figured out who our mysterious woman was,” I told her, “It was Elliot Murray, the one we dismissed because you thought she was a he.”

“Oh!” Daphne jumped up, “Murray, like Eric Murray?”

“Exactly,” I gesture to the pile of newspapers and clutter around the office, “Somewhere in here, I’m guessing, is the key to this mystery.”

I explained to her what we were looking for as quickly as I could while Mrs Robertson was still out of the room. While we still had the chance, we rummaged through the drawers of the tiny desk in the corner for leverage or clues we could use to extract the truth.

There wasn’t much, to be perfectly honest, just the usual paperwork that comes with being a school librarian: literature orders and receipts, notes from teachers about students to keep an eye for, late notices, cards from students, that kind of thing.

“Aw, look at this,” Daphne said, holding up a hand-drawn Christmas card, “It’s so sweet, see? It’s from a Jennifer, saying thank you for recommending Roald Dahl.”

“That’s cute,” I replied, “It looks really old, when’s it from?”

“Christmas of 1988, I think?” Daphne wonders out loud, “And this says she’s a freshman, so fourteen or fifteen. She is… twenty-one now.”

“Ooh, old enough to drink, do you think she’d buy us alcohol if we ask nice enough?” I joked, “Maybe if we tell her we’re friends with Mrs Robertson, she might.”

“They seem pretty close, don’t they?” Daphne smiled, turning the card over in her hands, “Why else would you keep a card from nearly ten years ago?”

“Maybe Mrs Robertson is a bit of a hoarder,” I shrugged, going through more of the papers.

This one is one of the teacher notices, I’ve seen this trio mentioned a couple of times now: Dennis Butler, Nathan Myers, and Peter Roberts. They were quite the troublesome trio; the notice mentions how they’d set of four stink bombs in a week and terrorised a group of fellow freshman back in 1986.

“I mean, why on earth would she need notices from nine years ago?” I continued, “These kids are long gone.”

“It’s weird, though,” Daphne noted, “Mrs Robertson only has cards from Jennifer, a couple from others around the same time, and the ones from this year. Nothing in between.”

“Maybe she forgot to throw them out during spring cleaning or something,” I dismissed, “We’re not looking for Christmas cards anyway, stay focused.”

“No, wait,” Daphne froze, “They’re coming back, quick, put everything back!”

In the hurried scramble to put everything back, Daphne pressed a newspaper clipping into my hand, “I found it.”

Mrs Robertson re-entered the room, slightly harried from the freshman’s attempts at delaying her return. She handed me the glass of water and settled into the chair opposite me.

“Am I allowed to know of this emergency or is this a secret Mystery Club matter?” Mrs Robertson asked with a smile, “Or is this fresh, new gossip? You girls know how much I love the chitter-chatter.”

“Actually,” I took a sip of the water, “I wanted to pick your brains a little, Mrs Robertson.”

“You did?” she asked, “What about exactly?”

“You see, Mrs Robertson,” Daphne explained, “We’ve been researching Schmitt, the groundskeeper.”

“You’ll not find much, dearies,” Mrs Robertson laughed, “Old Schmitt lives a routine, drab life. You know, he didn’t even go to the faculty Christmas feast even after being explicitly invited by the headteacher.”

“We were looking into his past,” I continued, “Did you know he had a wife? And a son?”

There was something there, a momentary look that passed across Mrs Robertson’s face at the mention of Eric. Pain, guilt, grief, maybe? It was gone in a flash and replaced with ignorance.

“No, I don’t recall,” Mrs Robertson replied, “He’s always been alone as far as I can remember.”

“Well then,” I pulled out the newspaper clipping Daphne had given me, and placed it on the desk, “Why do we have a photo of you attending Eric’s funeral?”

The article is a tribute to Eric, dated a week and a half after his death, and has a photo of the funeral party watching the casket under the title. Mrs Robertson covered her face with her hands, mirroring her newspaper image, and pushed the article away from her.

“Front row seats to watching the casket being lowered into the ground no less,” Daphne pointed out, “You have to be pretty important to receive that honour. Are you sure you’ve never heard of him before?”

“I-I…” Mrs Robertson stammered, her grief racking her frame as the sobs escaped her lips, “I would’ve done anything for him to be happy, you know?”

Daphne pursed her lips and gently rubbed Mrs Robertson’s back, “Take your time.”

“Thank you,” Mrs Robertson tried her best to collect herself, and in between sobs, told us the plight of Eric Murray.

He’d been born Jennifer Murray, Mrs Robertson told us, in 1974 to Carl and Elliot Murray. They were a fairly normal family, to all extents. Carl and Elliot weren’t exactly delighted about their marriage, however, but as Elliot had already been pregnant with Eric at the time, they didn’t really have much choice. It was either a life of exile and scandal (Crystal Cove was an even smaller and more conservative town back then) or get married. Obviously, Elliot found someone else who she was much more compatible with, so she ended up abandoning Eric and Carl for Christian Hill, a wealthy real estate mogul from out of town.

Eric was five at the time, so understandably this weighed on him heavily. It only got worse for him as he started school, and immediately became the target of bullies. This bullying continued throughout elementary and middle school, as both schools were in the same building, but Eric did get a year of respite as the bullies happened to be in the year above.

“Would they have by any chance been Dennis Butler, Nathan Myers, and Peter Roberts?” I asked.

“Yes, how did you know that?” Mrs Robertson replied, perplexed by my interruption.

“Just a hunch,” I shrugged, “Please, go on.”

It was during that year that Eric realised that maybe he wasn’t a girl, like everyone in his life had told him up to that point. Naturally, when he moved up into high school, the bullies noticed this doubt and tormented him to hell and back about it. It had started small, knocking books out of arms, that kind of thing, but as with most things, it escalated. Dion, that’s what everyone called Dennis, nearly drowned Eric in the girl’s bathroom. Peter tried to push Eric down a flight of stairs but somehow managed to do it in the wrong direction. And Nathan…

“He made it look like a suicide, didn’t he?” Daphne asked, offering Mrs Robertson a handkerchief, “He went too far and instead of getting help, he staged it to rid himself of the blame.”

“Eric used to come in here all of the time with bruises and cuts,” Mrs Robertson said, nodding, “Every time, he would say that everything was fine, and even as the injuries got worse, I believed him. I thought he had it under control, little did I know that …”

She sobbed, pulling her cardigan around her tighter.

“He was such a sweet kid. I promised myself never to let such a thing happen again, never to let a student down.” Mrs Robertson took one of Daphne’s and one of my hands and grasped them together, “Every time I think about how he must’ve died, all alone in that Special Ed building, my heart breaks.”

“Schmitt visits it, every Tuesday,” I told her, “He died on a Tuesday, didn’t he?”

Mrs Robertson nodded, “He’s still trying to prove that the boys killed him, even after all of these years. He borrows those newspapers all the time.”

“What do you mean? “Prove it”?” Daphne asked, “The police caught them, didn’t they?”

“No, I’m afraid not, petal,” Mrs Robertson seemed to be on the verge of tears again, “The police don’t care, frankly. Because Eric was transgender, they thought his death was good riddance.”

“That’s… awful,” Daphne glanced at me, “We’ve got to do something about this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot Summary: Velma and Daphne snoop around the library office while Mrs Robertson is outside and distracted. They find Christmas cards from a "Jennifer", school notices about a troublesome trio (Dennis Butler, Nathan Myers, and Peter Roberts), and a newspaper article about Eric Murray's death which features Mrs Robertson in the cover photo. They confront her about it, asking her to tell them about Eric.  
> She tells them about how Eric was AFAB, how his mother had abandoned him and his dad for a wealthy real estate mogul when he was five. Eric was constantly bullied by the aforementioned trio, and would regularly turn up to the library with bruises and cuts but would insist that everything was fine. When Eric was a sophomore, the bullying went a step further. Dennis nearly drowned Eric in the girl’s bathroom, Peter tried to push Eric down a flight of stairs but somehow managed to do it in the wrong direction, and Nathan killed Eric in the Special Ed building and made it look like a suicide.  
> Even after five years, the police don't believe that Eric was murdered or don't care, because they knew he was trans. Daphne proclaims that they need to help bring the wrath of justice down onto the ones responsible for Eric's death.
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! :D  
> This is the last chapter for a while as I'm going to be editing the previous chapters for a bit, so see you guys later. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading so far,  
> -MoonRenegades


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